MIAMI — WLRN is presenting award-winning journalist Michel Martin and her National Public Radio talk program Tell Me More starting July 2 at 8:00 p.m.
“We like to think about Tell Me More as a comfortable gathering place,” Martin said, “but a place where we can talk about important and sometimes difficult things.”
From conversations with President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama, Liberian President Ellen Sirleaf Johnson and Madeleine Albright, Sugar Ray Leonard and Tori Amos, spiritual chats and listener contributed anecdotes, Tell Me More shares the voices of parents and educators, of lawmakers and thought leaders, of actors, authors and musicians from every genre and medium.
‘NIGHTLINE’ FIXTURE
Prior to her role at Tell Me More, Martin spent 15 years at ABC News as a correspondent for Nightline and other programs and specials, including a critically acclaimed AIDS documentary and the ongoing series America in Black and White.
Martin also covered state and local politics for the Washington Post and was White House correspondent for the Wall Street Journal.
Tell Me More initiates dialogue around the issues especially relevant to multicultural life in America, but are often overlooked.
Each week the show features Can I Just Tell You?, a first-person essay from Martin exploring topics around race, education, class and opportunity. Martin received a Radio-Television News Directors Association Edward R. Murrow Award in 2010 for her essay on the moral dilemma on witnessing acts of violence.
BROTHER TALK
Other regular popular features include the Barbershop roundtable, where the Barbershop guys weigh in on news in politics, sports and pop culture, and a weekly parenting segment with moms and dads discussing current issues and offering advice.
In its fifth year of production, Tell Me More has more than a half-million weekly listeners on nearly 100 public radio stations in the U.S. It is a production of NPR News in association with the African American Public Radio Consortium, representing independent public radio stations that serve predominantly black communities.
BLOGGING IT TOO
“Some of the stories we do, they would have laughed me out of the room on TV,” Martin told Marc Fisher of the Washington Post, who said she “has a keen ear, a taste for good stories and a knack for asking tough questions.”
“Seeking a broad audience doesn't inhibit Martin from speaking frankly about race or other touchy topics,” wrote the Post’s Fisher. “Martin wants the show to speak to ‘those who are not being spoken to,’ something she hopes her erstwhile colleagues in television will once again find the courage to do.”
Fisher also noted that “the current cost-consciousness in television leaves a big opening for radio and for new media.
“Martin started a blog about Tell Me More months before the show premiered, and she still uses the blog to give listeners a peek at how decisions are made about what gets on the air – the kind of transparency audiences increasingly demand.”
Photo: Michel Martin
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