Independent TV and radio producer Tony Kahn is the U.S.-based host of the new international news program, The World, a co-production of PRI, BBC and WGBH, Boston. Hosts in London are Mary Ambrose and Eddie Mair, both formerly of BBC's Radio 5 Live.
Kahn said before broadcast tryouts began that as host he hopes to put a ''human face on historical events,'' resonate with listeners' own experiences, and ''tell the real-est possible stories one possibly can about the world.'' Kahn most recently produced Blacklisted, a six-part radio series about Hollywood writers and directors, including his late father, who were blacklisted in the '50s. He has written, produced, narrated and hosted more than 50 radio and TV programs for PBS, NPR, Nickelodeon, A&E, Monitor Radio and WGBH-TV. He has also been a regular commentator for Marketplace and WBUR's Morning Edition. Kahn is also a Russian scholar, having translated four books of Russian poetry.
Ambrose has worked as radio producer, anchor and writer in radio and TV. She was most recently with Radio 5 Live's After Hours Arts Review and Up All Night. For CBC, she co-produced and presented the education special Big Yellow Bus, and a series profiling British writers. She has also worked for the Christian Science Monitor, NPR, Deutsche Welle and the ABC.
Mair, Scotland-born, previously hosted Radio 5 Live's Midday With Mair and the morning show, Sunday with Mair. He also had a popular early morning call-in show in Scotland, according to PRI, and was with Reporting Scotland and Good Morning, Scotland. He began his career at Radio Tay in Dundee, as a program assistant, and later worked as producer and presenter on a weekly call-in show, The Tay Talk-In.
The World's choice of independent producer Tony Kahn as Boston-based host took many pubcasters by surprise. Kahn doesn't have the newsroom background some expected the program's host to have.
During the first weeks of the broadcasts, one general manager called it a "gutsy'' choice, another "intriguing.'' Executive Producer Neil Curry calls it "almost an inevitable choice.''
"He has an incredibly worldy mind, and can hold forth on almost anything,'' Curry says. In addition, Kahn asks the questions listeners would ask, he says. While plenty of radio interviewers do that, he says, they often sound "as if they're serving some different interest. Tony sounds as if he's representing the average intelligent public radio listener.''
Kahn voices a similar view of his role. "I'm a learner, and I hope people feel from me that I'm not trying to be an expert and put them on the spot.''
Because The World named its hosts shortly before launch, says Curry, "They've never seen each other.'' He says, "It's sometimes quite interesting--to hear people on the air getting to know each other, like eavesdropping.''
The use of hosts on different continents is emblematic of the program's broad vision, he says. "It's a transatlantic conversation.''
Originally published in Current, Dec. 4, 1995
Since the Public Radio Conference in June, the forthcoming international news program The World has been on a hiring spree. The staff of 32, split between Boston and London, has left footprints all over the globe in the pursuit of stories. The new hires speak, among them, 10 languages fluently and a dozen more languages at a working level, according to Public Radio International. Here is a partial list of new staffers:
Marifi Chicote, series editor/London, worked for the BBC's Latin American Service and later moved to Radio4, the BBC's domestic talk network, where she worked for the evening news show The World Tonight. She has worked in Spain, France, Israel, Chile, Mexico, Hong Kong and in the U.S. during the 1992 presidential campaign. She was born and raised in Manila.
Carol Hills, series editor/Boston, was formerly executive producer for Northwest Public Affairs Radio in Seattle, where she created the now-defunct Northwest Journal, a daily regional news and cultural affairs program. She has also been a series producer for Monitor's Fifty Years Ago Today, and a producer for Monitor Radio news.
Ofeibea Quist-Arcton, U.S. roving reporter, is the first African woman to be named a BBC correspondent. She previously was a producer and host for BBC World Service's flagship English-language news programs. She began as a reporter in southern England and joined the BBC's Africa Service in 1987. A native of Ghana, she speaks English, French, Italian, Twi, Fante and Spanish.
Andrew Philip Sussman, broadcast journalist, previously worked with Chemonics International Consulting in Moscow. He has also worked as a broadcast journalist for Radio France Internationale in Paris, an editor for the Moscow Times, and Moscow bureau chief for Interpulse. He is a native of Denver.
Traci Tong, broadcast journalist, was previously assistant news director at KERA, Dallas, where she also worked as a reporter, producer and anchor. For KERA-TV, she moderated campaign forums. She began her journalism career at Hawaii Public Radio.
Mary Louise Kelly, broadcast journalist, was a freelance reporter for BBC Scotland, and also interned at BBC Westminster. Prior to that, she was a staff writer and news intern at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Connie Blaszczyk, broadcast journalist, joins PRI from WGBH, where she produced specials such as ''Celebrating African-American Storytelling,'' and ''Reflections on Los Angeles: Anna Deavere Smith.'' She earlier produced and hosted a one-hour daily arts magazine, Around New York, for WNYC-FM.
Broadcast Journalist William Troop was assignment editor and reporter at WAMU, Washington. He also worked as associate producer and director for Weekend All Things Considered and NPR's now-defunct Latin File. Prior to joining NPR, he produced daily Spanish-language news shows for broadcast on Voice of America.
Senior Producer Marco Wolfe Werman comes to World from Rome, where he freelanced for Monitor Radio. He has also produced, hosted and served in editorial capacities for WCFE-FM/TV in Plattsburgh, N.Y. Werman also was a producer for BBC World Service's Network Africa, a correspondent for BBC World Service in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, and a freelancer for major dailies and wire services.
Another senior producer, Phillip Warren Dominique Martin, has been a freelance writer for the New York Times and other major publications, and a commentator for Morning Edition. He also worked as reporter for WBUR-FM, and in editorial capacities for several other radio and TV stations. He was a national projects communications director at Oxfam America and served as press secretary for Boston Mayor Raymond Flynn.
Senior Producer Anthony Brooks has worked as a regional reporter for NPR, covering New England while doing assignments for WBUR as well. He also covered the 1992 presidential campaign for NPR, and worked as a U.S. editor for Caravel America, a monthly magazine about the U.S. that sells in Italy.
Jacqueline Mow, senior producer, was a producer with KRQE-TV, a CBS affiliate in Albuquerque. She has also been a news writer and translator at the Societe Nationale de Radio et Television Francaise D'outre Mer, Paris, and a producer for three English radio news programs fed daily to Africa, Asia and France.
Senior Engineer J. Robert O'Connell comes to World from a teaching post at the College of Music Sound Recording Technology Program, University of Massachusetts. He was also at instructor at Emerson College. He also runs an audio business, LineLevel, in the Boston area.
Christopher Engles, engineer, came to World from Monitor Radio, where he was senior audio engineer. He also worked as a drive engineer at WBUR, Boston, and production assistant to the Miles Davis Radio Project.
Bobby Jett, production coordinator, was a longtime employee at WGBH, where he worked as production manager, production/unit manager, production assistant and assistant unit manager.
Margaret Barba, office coordinator, had been a marketing coordinator at WGBH and was co-founder and acting director of the National Coalition for Early Childhood Professionals.
Marta Valentin, broadcast assistant, was operations production coordinator at WGBH, where she also hosted and produced radio show Mundo Latino. She produced the PRI specials ''Navidad in Puerto Rico'' and ''Felicidades: A Latin American Holiday Celebration.''
Originally published in Current, March 20, 1995
Independent producer Tony Kahn has begun production of a dramatic radio series on 19 Hollywood directors and writers--one, his late father--who were blacklisted in the 1950s.
Because current congressional attacks on public broadcasting lend Blacklisted an ''increased relevance'' to the present political scene, Kahn speeded up production, aiming for a fall or winter release. NPR, the distributor, also wants to release the six half-hours this year rather than next year, given future budget uncertainties, Kahn said.
The cast for the series includes Eli Wallach, Julie Harris, Jerry Stiller, Edward James Olmos, Martin Mull and Ellen Gere, daughter of late blacklisted actor Will Gere. Josh Mostel will play his blacklisted father Zero Mostel. NPR news analyst Daniel Schorr, who was on President Nixon's enemies list; Scott Simon, whose father was blacklisted in Chicago; Susan Stamberg, and NPR foreign correspondent Andy Bowers will play news reporters.
To avoid a subpoena to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee, four decades ago, Kahn's father told his family he was going to San Francisco but instead fled to Mexico. Kahn was five at the time. ''I assumed he was dead,'' Kahn says. ''When I did see him in Mexico [nine months later] it was like a dream come true.'' Kahn's father was unable to work again under his own name, and he died from a heart attack 15 years later. By that time, the family was living in New Hampshire, where the state had launched its own investigation of the elder Kahn, who refused to cooperate until the end.
Blacklisted will be based on Kahn's memories, interviews, his father's letters and diary, and 3,000-plus pages from FBI files. It will use tape from testimony before Congress. Although it will contain a good dose of humor, the program ultimately will portray ''how fear affects a community,'' and how easily it recruits followers. ''Nobody had a gun to anyone's head to make them inform on friends and neighbors,'' Kahn said.
In the production, Kahn is using spatializing, an audio technology that seems to place sounds in a 360-degree space. ''J. Edgar Hoover will be able to enter a door to your left, walk behind your back, and whisper in your ear,'' according to promo copy.
The series is funded partly by CPB, the National Endowment for the Arts, and New Hampshire's and Massachusetts' state cultural councils. Kahn says the BBC may distribute the show overseas, and he plans to release it on audiocassette and possibly CD-ROM. A book will accompany the series as well.
Web page posted Jan. 19, 1995
Current: the newspaper about public TV and radio
in the United States
Current Publishing Committee, Takoma Park, Md.