Arts & Entertainment
Peter Sagal on Making News Fun and the Legacy of ‘Wait Wait... Don’t Tell Me!’
Keeping up with the news of the day can be tough.
But for 26 years, Peter Sagal has been making it fun for audiences across the country as host of NPR’s weekly radio show “Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!”
This week, he’s offering fans a look behind the curtain, sharing takeaways from his memorable journey.
On engaging with a live audience:
“If you have people in front of you, like audience members, … and you say something funny, they might laugh. And if there are people there who might laugh, then the comedians and myself might actually try harder to be funny. It’s an incentive system. So eventually, we figured that out and started doing it live every week starting, I believe, in early 2005.”
On keeping news fun and interesting:
“We kind of have a new strategy. We kind of ignore for the most part all the major news, the depressing stuff, the serious stuff and just do the ‘fart’ news. … And when we do talk about the serious news, which we do — we’ll be talking, for example, on this week’s show about the new apparent Democratic candidate Kamala Harris — when we do talk about things like that, what our motto is, we say the things on the radio that most people are reduced to shouting at the radio.”
On sharing his story:
“I discovered that I had been sort of watching the world for this very strange lens and I might have picked up some stuff along the way because I’ve got perspective, right? So I’m trying to use that perspective and coming up with sort of, for lack of a better word, words of wisdom, or at least amusing observation about everything that I have seen. And I have terrifyingly seen a lot. We started with Bill Clinton’s Lewinsky scandal. … There are people who were born after that, who are adults and drinking adult beverages and paying rent. I mean, we’ve been here for a while.”
On the legacy of “Wait Wait... Don’t Tell Me!”:
“When this wonderful job at NPR — which I’d always loved NPR, I was listener for many, many years — came up, I said, ‘Well, this will be a nice little stop.’ … And instead I’m here, which sometimes is a little strange and surprising. But one of the things that’s been very, I’ll say gratifying, over the last few years is because we’re doing it so long, those young people who I mentioned, they grew up with us. I’ve been a part of their lives, which is flattering. … So I never thought I would ever be a public radio institution, and yet that’s what it says on my dressing room door — enduring public radio institution.”
Sagal will be at the Athenaeum Center on July 27. Click here to purchase tickets.
