“I’m a public broadcasting geek,” says Brian Bull, a general assignment reporter for KLCC, the public radio station headquartered in Eugene. “I was born the same year that ‘Sesame Street’ started, and I grew up listening to public radio in my hometown of Lewiston, Idaho. I listened to NPR all the time in the morning, hearing people like Bob Edwards, and Carl Kasell. "
Drawing on that background and his more than 20 years working in public radio, Bull is also the lead interviewer and consultant for the Public Radio Oral History Project. The project was launched in February of 2022 by Ken Mills, a Minnesota-based media consultant specializing in public radio.
The goal of the Public Radio Oral History Project, Mills writes in an email, is to interview as many of the pioneers of public radio as possible. “Because many of these people are in their 70s, 80s and 90s, time is of the essence,” Mills writes. “Quite a few of the people who established public radio have passed away, underscoring the urgency of the work.”
In writing a blog called “Spark News,” about trends, issues and people working in public radio, Mills sometimes covered deaths or retirements of people in the industry, pioneers he referred to as part of “public radio’s Greatest Generation,” as he says. He became motivated to collect first-hand accounts of the early days of NPR and public radio stations.
Bull, 54, got involved in the project after having first met Mills years ago, when Bull was working in public radio in South Dakota, and produced a documentary that Mills helped distribute through the public radio system.
When Mills reached out to say he was developing a Public Radio Oral History Project, the idea intrigued Bull.
“I’ve worked in public radio for half my life, so I’m partial to it, obviously,” says Bull, who has been at KLCC since 2016. He recalls working at NPR headquarters in Washington, D.C., in the late ‘90s, as an intern, a production assistant, and editorial assistant.
Bull remembers the “dedication, and warmth and curiosity” of NPR veterans of that era, including Neal Conan, Liane Hansen and Ray Suarez.
So far, according to Mills, six people have been interviewed for the Public Radio Oral History Project, and the goal is to interview 20 people before the end of 2023. Once the interviews are done, they’re submitted to the University of Maryland libraries, where NPR collections are housed as part of the university’s broadcasting archives.
The first person Bull interviewed was Bill Buzenberg, who served as a vice president of news for NPR in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Bull also interviewed Doug Mitchell, the founder and director of NPR’s Next Generation Radio project, a training program for people with an interest in digital journalism and audio narratives. Mitchell, Bull says, “has really sought to diversify the ranks of the public radio newsrooms.”
As an enrolled member of the Nez Perce tribe, Bull says that gathering oral histories is particularly meaningful. “A very significant part of our culture is oral tradition, and oral narratives,” he says, and sharing stories from one generation to the next.
In addition, at a time when traditional news media is often under attack, the public media approach seems more important than ever, Bull says. Rather than be an example of the “24-hour news cycle,” and an “odd realm when outrage and punditry are somehow seen as news,” Bull says, public broadcasting can instead feel like a refuge of balanced journalism.
Public media, such as KLCC and Oregon Public Broadcasting, have a national reputation as being especially popular in Oregon. That has been true to Bull’s experience, he says. Among KLCC listeners, “Interest is high. Loyalty is excellent. And we keep pushing ourselves.”
“It’s not perfect,” Bull says of public broadcasting in general. “Like any news organization, they still have the occasional stumble. But compared to other news media out there, they’re really leading the pack in terms of being accurate and fair.”
— Kristi Turnquist
503-221-8227; kturnquist@oregonian.com; @Kristiturnquist
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