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You might think it’s impossible to use “public radio” and “hip” in the same sentence unless Nina Totenberg had suffered some kind of skiing accident. But WBEZ in Chicago and Public Radio International’s “This American Life” is indeed hip—as well as intensely literary and surprisingly irreverent. “When I say something untrue on the air,” says Ira Glass, the show’s host and producer, “I assume people know when I’m just saying something for effect, or to be funny. But sadly, one of the problems with being on public radio is that people tend to think you’re being sincere all the time.” Audio archives and a listing of the stations that carry the show are on the program’s Web site (www.thislife.org), and next year, Rhino Records will release a “greatest hits” CD, an event that, Glass readily admits, thrills him. “To be on the same label as Otis Redding and Bart Simpson—what else could anyone want?”—Ana Marie Cox and Joanna Dionis

What books have inspired you?

Bill Buford’s Among the Thugs. He decided to spend time with soccer hooligans in England, and it’s everything you’d ever want journalism to be. The book’s really about the pleasure of being in a mob, of being in a riot. And, as he points out, it’s an ancient feeling, a thrilling feeling. In a certain way, as primal a human feeling as falling in love.

What have you been listening to lately?

I love They Might Be Giants—the sheer inventiveness and variety of what they do is really amazing. And they’re great writers. They always seem smarter than the constraints of [what] a pop song can allow—like Nobel Laureate physicists who have to do all their experiments with paper cups and glue and string instead of photon detectors and particle accelerators.

What radio shows do you listen to?

Very few. “Loveline” is always on the alternative rock station when I get off work—you know, the one with Dr. Drew and Adam. I had no idea so many 14-year-olds were having anal sex. Sort of breaks your heart.

You say radio is the most visual of media. Does that make television the most aural?

Sadly, it doesn’t. If only logic worked in such a pure way all the time. Me, I think all TV should be more like the commercials—at least, like the good commercials. People talk in a conversational tone, filmmakers toy with visual aesthetics, there’s good music, sometimes there are dogs, interesting dogs, who seem to be heavily involved with food—they make sandwiches and dream about fast-food tacos and lead Latin nations. If the news—and the sitcoms, and the dramas—would just take more cues from the commercials, I swear I’d watch more often.

Read more from our exchange with Ira Glass in “Ira Glass: Live and Uncut.”

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

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