One Small Step: A Sixth Street Conversation with Dave Isay

David Stiepleman: Hi everybody. Thanks for coming. Thanks for being on. We've got people on the, I think in ether somewhere on, on Zoom and listening in on the, on a webinar. Very happy to welcome everybody to a recording of It's Not Magic – doing this live. I'm happy to welcome Dave Isay. Hi Dave.

Dave Isay: Hi David.

Stiepleman: Who started making public, uh, radio documentaries almost 40 years ago. You were awarded a MacArthur Genius Fellowship for that work. So you have to admit that I'm very brave to get up here with you and with an actual genius and to try to do what you do. Um, you founded the nonprofit StoryCorp that's brought more than 700,000 Americans together, two at a time, to record intimate conversations about their lives and past wisdom from one generation to the next. Each conversation is archived in the Library of Congress. It's the largest single collection of human voices ever gathered. The StoryCorps stories are heard and seen and viewed hundreds of millions of times each year on NPR and beyond. And if you're like me, when you listen to them, you tear up 'cause they're very lovely. We're gonna get an example, at least in one example of that today. And then Dave is currently heading up story StoryCorps work to help decrease toxic political polarization in the United States through a program called One Small Step, which we're gonna talk about in earnest today 'cause that's actually why, what we wanted to really talk about kind of an antidote to the venom of political extremism that we've been seeing a lot. Especially over the last 10 years here in the US. So first of all, thanks for being here. It's great to have you.

Isay: Very happy to be here. Great. Thank you, David. Thanks for having me.

Stiepleman: My pleasure. Um, can we talk about StoryCorps first?

Isay: Sure.

Stiepleman: Can we go like, why did you do that? And do the, from the booth in Grand Central to this large organization. Yeah. How did it happen?

Isay: Well you, um, so do people that know what StoryCorps is? Raise your hand. No, absolutely nobody. Okay. One, two. Alright. Three. Okay. Well, that's good. We like to, we like to win over converts. So, StoryCorps a very simple idea, as you said. And I had, so I made radio documentaries for a couple of decades before starting StoryCorps. And, I was always interested in the public service use of audio more than, entertainment value for better or worse. And, did, a lot of stuff in like, prisons and, flop houses and housing developments. And, you know, when I was a kid in the Louisiana State penitentiary interviewing people who are serving like 50 year sentences. And they were talking about their kids and their parents and their lives. And these, actually, these guys, most of 'em had been wrongly convicted in, in the ‘60s. That, you know, I saw that being listened to was important, sometimes transformative in people's lives. And I did documentaries like that forever. And then had this idea of StoryCorp, which kind of takes a public service use to another level where we put a booth, as you said, in Grand Central Terminal, you bring your mom, your dad, you're met by a facilitator who brings you inside the booth, the door shuts, you're in complete silence. The lights are low sacred space. And you sit across from your grandma for 40 minutes, um, facilitators in the corner, and you ask questions and you listen. Um, and from, and I knew from doing these radio documentaries that the microphone gives you the license to say things, to ask things you've never talked about before. So it's an opportunity to say the really important things to the people who are most important in your life. Everybody cries in the booth. Um, at the end of the 40 minutes, as you said, you get a copy, another one goes to the Library of Congress. So your great-great-great grandkids can get to know your grandmother through her voice and story. It's all everyday people. And, you know, I think that the, one of the innovations, like as a, originally I was a journalist for many years, is that, you know, when we, when I made radio documentaries that was about creating a work that would be heard by many people, interviewing people to create something that are, that's, you know, affects many people by listening to it. Or if you're doing TV or print, you're writing things that a lot of people see. And the idea of StoryCorps was that the final product doesn't matter. It's a chance to give as many people as possible the chance to be interviewed, to talk to each other, to listen to each other. So that was the impetus. And it was just, you know, it was a crazy idea and everybody said it was gonna fail. And, uh, we just kept, we kept going and it worked.

Stiepleman: Were there things that you had to change, like at the beginning that didn't work? Like what you…

Isay: No, it didn’t. No, it didn’t. It did. So we, um, I mean, given where we are, I mean, I don't usually talk about this. I had been a journalist and suddenly I was kind of an entrepreneur. And I was not ready for it. Um, I read, you know, every business book there was to read. I mean, we were within weeks, you know, early on of just running out of money and having to close the whole thing down.

Stiepleman: Yeah.

Isay: Um, so it was the general idea was right. And we didn't change it much. And I, you know, it's funny 'cause I remember the first day in the booth watching the people go in and, you know, it was almost like I knew that when they came out, I would know 90% of what there was to know about this thing. And I did that, on that first kind of day. Um, but yeah, so we, it was, uh, people did not think it, thought it was a bad idea. And honestly, at the beginning of StoryCorps, like nobody came to the booth. They had no idea what it was. And we had lots of empty slots. We had like a couple of insane people who came. Like we had one woman who came like 180 times. She'd ride the subways and like pick people up and bring them to the booth and interview them. But eventually it got incredibly popular. And as you said, we launched nationally and we have Airstream trailers that travel the country. And, and now, we'll have waiting lists of thousands of people in, you know, two minutes before we even open reservations. So it got very popular.

Stiepleman: Can you, can you go back?

Isay: Despite the fact that nobody's heard of it.

Stiepleman: Yeah. It's on every Friday morning, NPR. And if you're in your car, if I'm in my car and I hear, I listen to it and I literally like tear up. Like I cry at every single one. They're very beautiful. Um, and I don't, I, maybe I'm particularly sensitive, but I don't think so. Um, could we just go back? You were in medical school, right?

Isay: I was in medical school, but I hadn't started yet.

Stiepleman: I see. But so, so like, what, what was it, how, what was the, was there an aha moment? Like when you were like, okay, what was it?

Isay: So, um, I was, so I was headed to medical school, and I had a hunch that it wasn't… everybody in my family's psychiatrist.

Stiepleman: That’s a whole other conversation.

Isay: Yeah. That's another, and, uh, I had a feeling it wasn't what I was meant to do. I took a year off and I was tutoring people. And one day I was walking down a street in the, I lived in the, in Manhattan, in the East Village in Manhattan. And there was a storefront that caught my eye. And I, um, I went inside, it was just like a tiny store. And I went inside and, uh, there was a couple inside and I started talking to them. And, they told me that they worked for the Transit Authority. They had left. They, um, had both, they were recovering heroin addicts, and they both had AIDS. This was 1987, so it was a death sentence at that point. And they took me to the back of the store and they had these models of a museum that they were certain they were gonna build before they died to addiction. Um, and they, and they were just these beautiful people and had this like, courage of their convictions. They had written to every rich person in New York, Donald Trump. They had this, like, loose leaf binder full of rejection letters that they saw as, like, that they were actually gonna get the money. And it was obvious they weren't gonna get the money. And I just fell in love with them. And I went home and back then we had Yellow Pages, and I went through the Yellow Pages and I called all the TV stations and said, ‘You have to do a story about this couple who's dying of AIDS, and they want to build this museum of addiction before they die.’ And everybody said no. And then I started calling the radio stations and everybody said no. And I called a community radio station in New York, and the woman who, um, was the news director picked up and she said, ‘It sounds like a great story, do it yourself.’ Um, so I borrowed a tape recorder and I went in and I started interviewing them. And the minute that I like pressed record on the tape recorder, I knew this was what I was gonna do for the rest of my life. Literally. Like, it was just like, I knew it. I knew this was what I was meant to do. So I went back to the station, she taught me how to edit. It aired on the station that night, and it just so happened someone from NPR was driving through New York. Heard the story, called her, picked it up for All Things Considered, and I dropped out of medical school and that was it. So yeah. Kind of crazy.

Stiepleman: That's crazy. I'm glad I asked you that. Yeah.

Isay: More than a little did you know.

Stiepleman: That's incredible. What, um, were you always a good listener?

Isay: Uh, no. My wife thinks it's the most ridiculous thing. that, I'm known as. Yeah. No, I mean, I'm, when I do interviews – and I don't do them now. I raise money and, I, you know, it's very intense, you know, listening like really closely to people. It was almost like there's like, I mean, you do, like in the podcast, you know, there's like a laser beam between you and the person that you're talking to.

Stiepleman: Yeah.

Isay: So, but, um, otherwise I'm, no, I'm like, I listen very intensely at certain times, and then I'm just like…

Stiepleman: Just as distractable as the rest of us the rest of the time.

Isay: Yeah, exactly.

Stiepleman: Um, okay, so, One Small Step. So roughly 10 years ago, you're, you're thinking about what, tell us what were you seeing? What were you looking at and what was your, what's the, the thesis?

Isay: Sure. So, um, you know, again, StoryCorps like everyday people listening to someone looking them in the eye and saying like, how do you want to be remembered? What was the most important moment in your life? You know, it reminds people they matter and won't be forgotten. It's all about, like, it's basically human connection. And, it was about eight years ago that I started to become concerned about toxic polarization in the country. So not the fact that we argue with each other, which is great and healthy, but what happens when we can't see each other as human beings anymore. Um, which is what's happened unfortunately, across the political divides in the country in a pretty intense way. And has, um, you know, it's picked up velocity a lot since I started thinking about this. So we had the 700,000 people who've done Story Corps interviews, have all known and loved each other. And, um, I started thinking like, what we're good at, we're good at figuring out how to get people to connect. And that I, you know, one of the quotes that I love is, um, Mr. Rogers used to carry a, in his wallet, a quote from a, a nun in Philadelphia, who's still alive, her name's Mary Lou Kownacki, and it says, “It's impossible not to love someone whose story you've heard.” Um, and I don't think that's 100% true, but it's like 98% true. So, started thinking about what we could do, given everything we've learned at StoryCorps to deal with this problem of hating each other across the political divides, which is a problem of proximity. You know, we don't, you know we don't have proximity. You, we live in our bubbles. I mean, you've heard all this stuff, so we started experimenting with a new way of doing Story Corps, um, of everybody. The 700,000 people who've done Signature Big Story Corps have known and loved each other. We started putting strangers together across the political divide, not to talk about politics, just to get to know each other as human beings, because like that Mr. Rogers quote, it's impossible to hate up close. Um, our Hippocratic Oath is to do no harm. It's all about the people in the booth. So we spent years developing the methodology. We had scientists behind us watching this thing, um, and figured out how to do this. Um, went through like a bunch of iterations, like tried every possible…

Stiepleman: Can you go through unpack some of that? Like what's some of the like, Contact Theory or other, like, what's it all about?

Isay: So we, I, this was, I mean, in the same way that I kind of had to learn about business at the beginning of StoryCorp. I didn't know anything about polarization. I didn't know anything about anything, but just had a hunch about how to come at this. So, um, I learned pretty quickly about something called Contact Theory, which is, um, probably the most studied theory in the history of psychology. Um, the whole, it comes outta social psychology, which was developed after World War II to figure out what, how did this happen, the, um, how, how did, how did the Holocaust happen? Um, and contact theory says that, um, it was, it was developed in the 1950s by a psychologist named Gordon Alport. And it says that under very specific circumstances, if you put, um, people who think they hate each other together, and they feel like they're on neutral ground and they have a visceral experience with each other, they can come out the other end not hating each other anymore, actually liking each other. So I, as kind of, as I was thinking about how we might do this, I started reading and learning about the science, and it matched up very well with Contact Theory. So that became kind of the undergirding theory that helped guide us. Um, so we realized that we couldn't, our maximal effectiveness with One Small Step wasn't gonna work with families. So we didn't do that. Um, we tried to have people talk about politics a little bit, and it always never worked. So, um, we just figured out ways to get people not to talk about politics. That's why we call it One Small Step. And the methodology worked, uh, in ways we never expected it to. Um, it's insanely effective we found, and actually we, um, in terms of Contact Theory, one of the people studying this is a woman named Jen Richardson, who has a lab at Yale, um, who's the world expert on Contact Theory and what she's finding in Contact Theory, when it works, and it's, and sometimes if it doesn't work, it makes things much worse, but when it works, basically you're sitting with someone and you see them at the end as differently like, uh, but you, it doesn't generalize to other people in the outgroup. So I, you, if you were someone different, I would say, okay, well that person's okay, but everybody like…

Stiepleman: Right. That's one of my questions is like, you, the skeptic would say, like, that's nice. Like, you get to know each other, you're not talking about politics. You go back into your groups and you're gonna throw rocks at each other. Even though you may not see each other.

Isay: So what, what they're seeing with One Small Step, and this is really for the first time that I'm aware of in the history of Contact Theory, is that it generalizes. So people not only see the person across from them as like, maybe they're okay, but they start to see the entire group.

Stiepleman: Well maybe, maybe we should describe, like, so what happens? You and I sign up. And you're whatever. And I'm the other side. And what happens?

Isay: So you sign up, you give some information about what your politics are. Um, you check, there are some boxes about who you are. Like things that have happened in your life, recently divorced, had a kid, lost a parent. Um, and we match you without you knowing it with someone across divides. Well, the computer algorithm matches you with someone who's had, it's a similar experience. You write a bio about who you are, short bio. And that goes to your partner. Your bio goes to your partner. So you see their first name, where they live, and their bio, you can't Google them. And then you're, and then you meet either in person or on a, on a special like protected zoom. And the interview starts with, um, with you reading the bio of your partner to your partner and your partner reading your bio to you. And then you just start as we suggest questions, you pick which questions you want to ask. If you want to talk about politics, you can, but we don't let you do it until the last couple minutes. And they're usually, they're not kind of direct questions. It's, we suggest questions like, what is it that, like that people that about people on your side that bothers you? Um, and um, and you know what, what we find is people come into these interviews scared and they come out the other end, um, changed and, and like pretty often friends, which is kind of hard to believe given the state of the country right now.

Stiepleman: Meaning they're like, we should have dinner sometime. Or they actually do have dinner sometime?

Isay: No, they do. Yeah. I mean that's exactly what happens. And it kind of belies belief 'cause they all end the same way with people saying, I want you to meet my wife. Let's go have dinner. Let's take a walk. Can I have your email address?

Stiepleman: Do you track the follow up?

Isay: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Stiepleman: And it started in a couple, like, like model cities or something. How did you pick those and where, where is it now?

Isay: So, we, um, we picked, we have three cities that we, um, that we did like kind of intensive testing with this on starting in 2022. Um, uh, Richmond, Virginia, Wichita, Kansas, and Columbus, Georgia. We did lots of polling to figure out which towns would work. I'll say, I will say that, um, one of the things that we found was that towns that have a little bit of an inferiority complex work, very, were like, were like, tended to work very well. That they wanted to, like, they, they weren't like kind of a first level town. Like they weren't a punch above your weight town.

Stiepleman: So they wanted to project an image.

Isay: Yes. They wanted to project an image. So, um, but these were towns where people, um, knew that there, there was a lot of division, but there was an openness to people, um, wanting to talk to each other. And there was also kind of a sense of, um, and you know, we tested in many cities before we chose our three.

Stiepleman: Yeah.

Isay: There was a, like, it's kind of a one degree of separation city. Everybody kind of knows everybody else. Um, and then we launched about a month ago, and you guys have helped us do this, um, given the, uh, tsunami of the election coming up. Um, we launched, uh, nationally. So now everybody in the country who wants to participate, uh, can participate. You don't get a, a facilitator, you do it over a video screen, but you sign up and you're matched and you have this conversation. Um, so we just had, we have, um, uh, billboards going up all over the country and PSAs and partnerships with the NFL. It's all just kind of ramping up now because we know that, you know, on November 6th, half the country's gonna think that the election was stolen. Um, and, uh, and, uh, it's not, it's gonna be probably a very difficult time. Uh, but, you know, StoryCorps very much a long game organization. So whatever happens during the election, we're gonna keep, um, we're gonna keep punching at this 'cause, uh, um, you know, I don't think a democracy can survive in a swamp of mutual contempt.

Stiepleman: Before we, I want to talk about the election for a second, but in a second, but just going back, so Contact Theory, generalizable for the first time, because what are you doing? How is that happening?

Isay: Why is that happening? Okay. So these are some statistics about, um, polarization in the country. You see, um, four and five voters in the US now describe the other side as hateful and brainwashed. Only one in 10 voters regard people with different political views from them as reasonable. Um, and, you know, the Civil War statistics and so forth. Um, but the, the good news is there's an exhausted majority in this country. Um, one of the people who we've been working with closely on one of the, the people who's been studying this is a guy named Tim Dixon, who runs an organization called More In Common, which is the premier organization studying the drivers of polarization globally. He's Australian, but has been spending most of his time on the US and he developed this, this term, the exhausted majority, about 90% of the country. The good news is they’re, um, sick of the divisions and, um, looking for a way out and scared. And about 70% are willing to actually like, do something to try and get themselves out of it. So why do people do this? And, and why is it starting to generalize? I think that the, like pressure has gone up and people are kind of miserable. Um, and I think that, that they're looking for an answer and are so grateful that there's like something they can do. Again, this is not the answer to everything. Like, it's just one small step. But there's, you know, there's this multi-billion dollar kind of hate and fear industrial complex that is telling us to hate and fear each other 24 hours a day. And, and, you know, uh, it a very dangerous place to be for a country. I mean, you had, you talked a little bit about Sixth Street and the culture that you guys have here, and that, you know, people trust each other and they, you know, they feel free to have conversations and you can argue about things and treat each other humanely and everybody feels like they belong. And, and, um, and that's successful, right? That's, and, but if you put those characteristics of the Sixth Street culture to the country, it doesn't match up very well. Um, and so, um, you know, a toxically polarized society, and we're not there yet. We're not, we haven't crossed that line yet. But you know, the politics are at a deadlock. There's political violence happens. It starts slowly and it goes very quickly. And you have like, very serious mental health issues. Cause if you can't, if you don't trust everybody, if you're paranoid, if you, if they're conspiracy theory, like it just drives people crazy.

Stiepleman: You've talked about One Small Step is like, as a public health like campaign.

Isay: Yeah. It is a public health campaign. Yeah. Yeah.

Stiepleman: You, I you were, I listened to you on C-span, it was a million years ago. Um, and there was a, somebody called in with a question, um, and it was basically like, this is great, but you're basically asking me to listen to their garbage. And I actually don't know what side that person was on, presumably that that comment can come from either, either side and you had, do you remember that question?

Isay: Mm-Hmm.

Stiepleman: Oh, you had an interesting answer, which is like, um, you know, I, I'm not, we're not asking you to solve any problems. We're just asking you to actually have the, like, just have the conversation and…

Isay: I would've if, if this happened now, um, uh, what I would say is, um, that we're, first of all, you're not, you're just talking about your lives. You're not talking about politics. So, um, you're, you're not, it, you're not gonna be arguing about politics and, you know, if people don't want to do it, they don't have to do it.

Stiepleman: Yeah.

Isay: I am like very optimistic about, um, about people. You know, we have these facilitators who serve a year or two with StoryCorps. Um, they travel the country, record hundreds of, like, they call it bearing witness to interviews. Um, and then they go back into their lives and to a person, when you ask them what they've learned, they give a version of the Anne Frank quote that people are basically good. And, you know, when if when we did, you know, thousands or tens of thousands of interviews, maybe there was some kind of a, um, a selection bias going on. But when you get to 700,000 people, like there's gotta be some truth to it. So I think we've forgotten that, you know, we've forgotten how to trust each other and we have a big trust problem, a big connection problem. And, um, uh, and you know, what we're trying to do is take just a little punch at that.

Stiepleman: How do you, um, I know, and you, you must get this question like, okay, you're a northeastern liberal seeming guy, NPR come on, this is, this is like, this is lefty stuff. How, how do you defeat that criticism?

Isay: Um, well, first of all, you, uh, you don't know my politics.

Stiepleman: I don't.

Isay: . Um, and, um, I, uh, look, the, the NPR connection, you know, NPR is now, had, was at some point had, was fairly evenly split between liberals and conservatives. And now it's basically a hundred percent liberal.

Stiepleman: Right.

Isay: Um, which I actually think is not great 'cause public broadcasting should be serving everybody. Um, but I, you know, I've spent, I, so the truth is, I didn't, before starting, um, One Small Step, I didn't have a lot of conservatives in my life. And I've spent the last eight years with nothing but conservatives. Um, and, uh you know, it, again, it's all about proximity. You know, I think that this is probably the ethos of Sixth Street also like, assume the best in others. Nobody's the worst thing they've ever done. And, you know, try to see the good in people.

Stiepleman: So I mean, you're spending time like in, not just on NPR, I mean, you're, you're on Tucker Carlson show, you're on Glen Beck show, I mean…

Isay: And, I listened to, I spent a lot of time, I spent a lot of time with conservatives 'cause we, public radio listeners know StoryCorps. So, um, it's not that difficult to convince them to do One Small Step. And conservatives have, because they don't listen to NPR have never heard of StoryCorps. So it's a much higher, you know, the entire like marketing exercise of trying to get people to do something that scares the crap out of them at this moment is absolute insanity. But then if you put it underneath that, that they've never heard of StoryCorp, and there's the NPR thing that makes it a thousand times more difficult.

Stiepleman: Yeah.

Isay: But I mean, it's kind of, you know, as you guys know, it's fun to solve difficult problems.

Stiepleman: . That's fair enough. How are you measuring success? Like you're saying it's, it's working. What are you looking at and what are the goals and, uh, clearly gonna transcend one hope's, you know, uh, this election cycle. Uh, but what, like, what, what are you looking at and how will we know that it's working?

Isay: So we, um, we, we look at a lot of things, um, just on the interpersonal level. We look at how, how people change and we see them, we see their, um, feelings towards people on the other side change. Um, we see them more hopeful, less fearful. Um, we look at the communities that we're in, the model, communities that we're in, and we see we do polling in those communities. And we're seeing changes in the community that people are, are, uh, you know, the kind of things that you see here, the brainwashed and reasonable, those numbers are moving in the right direction. Um, and then, um, we're gonna be looking at numbers, how many people we can get to participate in this thing. And hopefully, um, hopefully we'll get a lot of people to participate over time. I mean, hopefully it's not driven by the fact that we're in so much pain that people are driven to do this. But over time, you know, again, like if you look at the, the culture of Sixth Street that, you know, imagine what this country could do if we could figure out how to get along with each other and, and treat each other as human beings and assume the best in in others.

Stiepleman: Do you wanna show any, any examples, uh, from the conversations, or maybe tell us about your favorite ones?

Isay: Or, um, well, we could, do you guys want to spend some time, a little time listening to stories? Okay. So, uh, why don't we do one, one StoryCorps like thing, and then go into One Small Step. Does that sound good? Super. I'm gonna do like an early StoryCorps story just to give you, this is like a foundational, uh, StoryCorp story. Just to give you a sense of this whole effort going back to Grand Central Terminal. So we're, this is week one and Grand Central Terminal. Uh, this is a couple who came to the booth. Um, again, it was like basically empty. Nobody knew what the hell we were doing, . Um, but they passed by the booth. His name was Danny Pera. Um, uh, he was an off track betting clerk in New York. OTB. I know you know what that is.

Stiepleman: I do.

Isay: Um, and, um, and, uh, Annie was a nurse and, uh, they came into Story Corps. Um, they, uh, they lived deep in Brooklyn.

Isay: . This is Danny and Annie, um, talking about their first date, week one StoryCorp booth, Grand Central Terminal.

Danny: She started to talk and I said, listen, I'm gonna deliver a speech. And I said, at the end, you're gonna want to go home. I said, you represent a 4 letter word. I said, that word is love. I said, if we're going anywhere, we're going down the aisle because I'm too tired, too sick, or too sore to do any other damn thing. And she turned around and she said, of course I would. And the next morning I called her as early as I possibly could.

Annie: And he always gets up early.

Danny: To make sure, make sure she hadn't changed her mind and she hadn't. And, uh, every year, on, on April 22nd, around three o'clock, I call her and ask her, if it was today, would you do with again? So far the answers been the same.

Annie: You answer the question.

Danny: I always feel guilty when I say I love you to you. And I say it so often. I say it to remind you that as dumpy as I am, it's coming from me. It's like hearing a beautiful song from a busted old radio. And it's nice you to keep the radio around the house.

Annie: If I don't have a note on the kitchen table, I think there's something wrong. You write a love letter to me every morning.

Danny: Well, the only thing that could possibly be wrong is I couldn't find a silly pad.

Annie: “To my princess. The weather out today is extremely rainy. I'll call you at 11:20 in the morning.”

Danny: It's a romantic weather report.

Annie: “And I love you. I love you. I love you.”

Danny: When a guy is happily married, no matter what happens at work, no matter what happens to the rest of the day, there's a shelter. When you get home, there's a knowledge knowing that you can hook somebody without them to downstairs and saying, get your hands off it. And it, it being married is like having a color television site. You never want to go back to black and white.

Isay: So we fell in love with Danny and Annie. They fell in love with StoryCorp. We had lots of open slots in the booth. Um, Danny came back over and over again. Um, he would bring major league umpires and undercover narcotics detectives, and every character he'd ever met, he'd bring Annie back to read love letters to her. Um, and we had plenty of space. So we were said, great. He would call, he would call the office on a Friday. I can't do his voice, but he'd say, I'm having a cataract taken out next week. Do you need me to come in and document it? And we'd say, sure. What the, what the hell? Come on, in . Um, and, um, he, and he loved Annie so much. Um, and you can't see it from this picture, but he was about five feet tall. He was bald. His eyes were like very crossed. He had one, by the time he came to the booth, he had one snaggle tooth and he had more romance in his little pinky than all of Hollywood's leading men put together. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, uh, end stage pancreatic cancer a bunch of years after this interview. And that week we, we renamed the, uh, we had a ceremony at the booth and we renamed at the Danny and Annie PSA booth. And then the next week, um, he lives in Sunset Park. He called and he said, I'm too sick to come to the booth, but I need to record a final interview with Annie. Will you come to our house? And, um, we did.

know, I think a part of StoryCorps that act of sitting with a loved one and looking them in the eye and listening to them reminds them that they matter and they won't be forgotten.

Stiepleman: That is a good one. Um, do you wanna do something from One Small Step or should, and then I think we should take some questions from folks and…

Isay: We could do questions. Maybe do something from One Small Step.

Stiepleman: Yeah. Questions for Dave? We got mics I think in the front here.

Audience Member 1: Dave, what are you, what are your thoughts about social media as a platform and what do you think about it, um, just generally and then what do you think about it as a platform for distribution for yourself?

Isay: Um, well I'm, so I'm not on social media. Uh, and so I, I can't really speak with, uh, which is kind of crazy. I guess I can't speak with a great deal of authority. I mean, I do think that, I mean, you guys have heard all the stuff about the algorithms and the dopamine and the putting the like buttons on and the kind of damage that's done. Um, and, uh, I, I do think that it has, um, so when you talk about the, you've got, when you talk about the exhausted majority, the 90% in the middle, those voices, like in social media are just dwarfed by the 6% on either side. Like, the crazy you are, the more like likes you're gonna get. It's all like this reinforcing. I mean, you've heard all this stuff before. I think that's all true. Um, and I think that it has been not fantastic, um, for our society. Um, and I hope we can figure out a way around that. Um, and, you know, social media, it's a great distribution platform for our, our stories also. So everything is, you know, one of the things about one small step, um, is people always talk about the fact that there's so much more nuance. Like nobody is like this two, this two dimensional cardboard cutout of whoever their politics are. Everybody is like, like one of the great questions is like, how did you come to these beliefs? And it's always like, it's un it's fascinating. It's like a Walt Whitman poem, you know, like, like listening to these answers. Um, so, um, like I think social media's complicated also. It's got po like big negatives and it's got big positives, and let's hope that the positives went out in the end.

Audience Member 2: Okay. So if you look at the micro of these stories, right? You wind up feeling optimistic. Then you look at some of those stats on the macro toxic polarization.

Isay: Yes.

Audience Member 2: And the 90%. And, you know, you started to say you were, you feel optimistic about the macro, but can you talk more about that and what are you looking at in the near term, uh, uh, in terms of, is that optimism warranted? And is there any kind of tipping point in your view in terms of when it may be too late?

Isay: Um, well, it's never, I, hopefully it's not too late. I have no idea what's gonna happen. I don't have any insight into this. I do, I think that, um, the, so those statistics about how much we, um, fear each other across divides. I mean, I think we're all living in a reality distortion field. That's the problem. And social media is a big piece of this. Um, and, um, and, you know, the, the polarized media is a big piece of this, but that's where we get all of our information, and that's how you make money in social media and through media. I don't, I, um, I remain optimistic. Um, but I have no, I don't have a crystal ball. Like, all you can do is just like, fight for what's right and fight as hard as you can and hope it turns out okay. I don't know what's gonna happen. I mean, we don't, you know, look, it was, you know, we were one inch away from, you know, uh, what, what four weeks and I guess it was July, uh, a month and a half ago from, um, I don't know what would happen in the country if Trump had been assassinated. God help us. I mean, after the election, you know, we're there, there's a very good chance that the election won't be decided for, for a while. Um, and January 6th, it has to be decided by then, but it could be a very difficult moment for the country. I can't, I don't know. Or it could be a landslide. I don't know which would be much better, whatever way it goes. Um, but I don't know what's gonna happen to the country, but I do know that we have a little bit of an answer and we're just gonna fight with everything we've got to to help people see the truth. You know, one of the things, we're trying to do two things with this big, um, if you, um, if you could go to the, um, the billboards, which is, which are One Small Step. So, um, we have, we have, uh, like 1100 billboards that are going up right now, across the country. And one thing we're trying to do is social norm, and we have commercials and, and radio spots. All of this is just starting right now in real time. One thing is to try and social norm the idea that we can see people, uh, across divides as human beings. You know, our dream is to convince the country, it's our patriotic duty to see people with whom we disagree to see the humanity and people with whom we disagree. Um, but another part thing we're trying to deal with, this is perceptual polarization. Those stats, Vijay, that, that we show, we show we showed are, you know, it, they're not how people feel, but they're based on, not on reality. So we're trying to remind people and show people that people across the divides aren't nearly as crazy as you think they are.
Stiepleman: How do you practice respectful discussion and debate inside of StoryCorps?

Isay: Um, well, um, we, I, I mean, I think that it's the…

Stiepleman: Leading question I should say. Do you do that? But I assume you do.

Isay: So I think people who are, um, uh, again, if this wasn't a podcast, I I would, I, so I, I think that, um, I would probably be a little more, let me, let me try and do this in a politic way. So one, I think, um, people who are drawn to StoryCorps probably the same way that people who are drawn to Sixth Street because of the values of StoryCorps. Um, they instinctively kind of live those values. I will say that, um, the, we're based in Brooklyn and our, our team is politically you know, certainly at the beginning of StoryCorps was, was pretty far left. And I think one of the things that, and there was, um, a lot of resistance inside StoryCorps to, um, One Small Step.

Stiepleman: Oh, interesting.

Isay: Um, and, uh, one of the things that makes me most hopeful about One Small Step is seeing people who were incredibly resistant out in the field facilitating these interviews and becoming the biggest advocates for One Small Step that they are and protecting their conservative participants. Like they would die for their conservative participants. And that in some ways, like seeing the impact it has on the staff who are out there every day listening to these interviews is some of the most, uh, like, are, are some of the most like, hopeful signs that I've seen.

Stiepleman: I love that. I'm gonna leave it on that note. And just to say, um, thanks for being here, obviously, but for this work, which we obviously think is super important, which is why we're proud supporters and, uh, let's all hope that we can, uh, we can get back to a more sensible place in terms of discourse. So thanks Dave.

Isay: Well thanks for having me, appreciate being here and the support. Thank you all for coming out. Yeah. Appreciate it. Thanks.