59 pages • 1 hour read
This I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women
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Character Analysis
Dan Gediman
Gediman is a public radio producer who has won numerous prestigious awards over the course of his career. He is the Executive Director of This I Believe Inc., the nonprofit organization that collects and shares This I Believe essays. He was the driving force behind the 2000s revival of the This I Believe radio program, as well as its Executive Producer. Gediman worked alongside Jay Allison as co-editor of this book and wrote the text’s Afterword.
Gediman currently lives in Louisville, Kentucky with his wife and family. He is the President and Executive Director of the nonprofit Reckoning Inc., an organization which aims to help communities engage with the legacy of enslavement in America through its podcast and radio programs, research and archival projects, and educational initiatives. His work in public radio has been recognized through honors including the duPont Columbia Award, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s Gold and Silver Awards, and the National Federation of Community Broadcasters’ Silver Reel Award.
Jay Allison
Allison is an American independent broadcast producer, journalist, audio engineer, lecturer, host, and writer. He was the producer, curator, and host of the 2005-2009 NPR revival of the This I Believe radio program. In addition to writing the Introduction to this book, he is also its co-editor alongside Dan Gediman.
Allison studied at Hartford’s Trinity College and at the National Theater Institute, and currently lives with his family in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. He has given guest lectures on citizen participation in public media in numerous schools and colleges across America, and has taught journalism and audio production in educational institutions all over the world. He’s the founder of the Association of Independents in Radio, and is the Executive Director of the nonprofit broadcasting organization Atlantic Public Media (APM). He’s written for publications including the New York Times Magazine, and is an innovator in his field: He pioneered “Sonic IDs” in regional broadcasting, and created some of the first websites dedicated to radio broadcasting in the 1980s.
Over the course of his career, Allison has contributed to hundreds of national and international radio programs and projects, and has received many of his industry’s highest awards. His website Transom.org was the first website ever to win the prestigious Peabody for Broadcasting, while his Public Radio Exchange site received the MacArthur Foundation’s “Genius Organization” Award. In all, he has received six Peabodys, and both the duPont-Colombia Silver and Gold Batons. He was also awarded the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s Edward R. Murrow Award in 1996 and the Public Radio New Directors’ Leo C. Lee Award in 2002.
Edward R. Murrow
Murrow (1908-1965) was one of the most influential and esteemed broadcast journalists during his lifetime. He is particularly known for his coverage of European political crises in the build-up to the Second World War, and his reports on the Battle of Britain in 1940. He also played a pivotal role in the establishment of radio journalism in the United States. He was one of the creators of the original 1950s This I Believe radio program, and the host of the original series. His introduction to the first series is transcribed in Appendix A of this book.
Murrow was born in North Carolina in 1908, and graduated from Washington State College while serving as president of the National Student Association. He worked to bring scholars fleeing oppression in Nazi Germany to America, before joining CBS in 1935. He was sent to Europe in the late 1930s as CBS’s Director of European Operations. He covered many of the continent’s major political crises in the build-up to the Second World War, and remained in Europe for the duration of the conflict, working with a small team of elite war correspondents known as “Murrow’s Boys” to report on the progress of war to listeners around the world. The quality of his coverage was instrumental in establishing American broadcast journalism as a respected and mainstream media channel.
After the Second World War, Murrow served as the Vice President of the CBS Network and Head of CBS News. He also continued to host radio broadcasts including This I Believe through the 1950s before transitioning to work in television news broadcasts. He was a noted critic of the “Red Scare,” and contributed significantly to the downfall of McCarthyism. In 1961, President J. F. Kennedy appointed him Head of the United States Information Agency, and he served on the National Security Council until his death from lung cancer in 1965.
Throughout his career Murrow was the recipient of countless awards, and he has been memorialized with numerous posthumous awards and honors. To this day, he retains a legacy as one of the most influential and respected reporters of the 20th century.
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