Two strangers enter a room. Each holds a sheet of paper on which each has written a brief first-person life story. Two facilitators—who have previously met these strangers only virtually–greet them, invite them to sit down, to tell their reasons for coming. The strangers exchange papers. Each reads the other’s words aloud. For a few minutes, each speaks in the other’s voice. Each lives the other’s life. Another “One Small Step” conversation has begun.
In 2023, WERU, a community radio station serving northern Maine, was selected as one of five stations to participate in StoryCorps’ new “One Small Step” [OSS] initiative. Over the course of a year, facilitators recorded 25 OSS conversations. The station then celebrated that work in a two-hour community listening event. This year, WERU was selected as an OSS alumni station.
Since its founding in 2003, StoryCorps has fostered and recorded over 600,000 conversations between family members and friends in all 50 states, building an intimate aural record of contemporary American life.
Now, with its 2021 launch of “One Small Step,” StoryCorps is also exploring a different approach. As “Us-vs.-Them” polarizations split American life and public discourse moved from incivility to insult, David Isay, StoryCorps founder, set out to bring together strangers who hold different viewpoints for one-to-one, facilitated, 50-minute conversations. Based on contact theory–which suggests that prejudice and conflict between groups can be reduced if their members interact with each other–these conversations create a structure through which personal communication can remind divided communities of individual common humanity. Over 2,528 people across 40 states have participated.
On July 16, I spoke with WERU’s General Manager Matt Murphy and with Chris Battaglia and Michele Christle who both came on board to facilitate and produce the “One Small Step” program for WERU. We spoke about last year’s program, its implementation and impact, and about their plans for 2024.
This conversation has been edited for sequence and length.
Diane: I’m so pleased to be talking with you today about this program. There’s such a simple elegance in the use of talking and listening, especially listening, to build compassion and in seeing how naturally community radio can become the medium for that work. So, thank you.
I think we should start with some background, particularly about what “One Small Step” is.
Michele: Typically, StoryCorps conversations are between two people who know each other and have some sort of existing relationship. [“One Small Step”] brings together two strangers who ostensibly have never met before for a conversation that can be deeply connective, where they get to know each other, and perhaps come away from it, feeling something a little bit different than they did when they first entered into it.
Chris: As facilitators, we find people across the spectrum of belief and coordinate between the two parties. All of the conversations are recorded; and, through a series of consent-based contracts, participants can determine whether or not they want to release these for broadcast or in public display for private use–or somewhere in the middle. We catalog and archive and then distribute them through WERU and Story Corps websites.
Michele: [The] conversations are about 50 minutes long and are facilitated. Sometimes our facilitation is more verbal; sometimes it’s more physical cues. We try to hold space for both conversation partners to feel like they can open up to each other.
Diane: And how did WERU get involved?
Matt: I was familiar with StoryCorps from hearing them on NPR or on Maine Public for a good number of years; and then I heard that David Isay, the founder of StoryCorps, was doing an NFCB (National Federation of Community Broadcasters) online presentation. So I participated in that and said, ‘Wow, this [“One Small Step” program] is, one, really needed and, two, really fascinating, and, three, could be really inspiring and moving.’ And I thought, I want us to be part of this.
I started applying and then realized we didn’t have the bandwidth to give it the attention it needed. So, fast forward to a year later, the application cycle opens up again, and I’m thinking, ‘Yeah, I would really like to try this, but it seems like it’s for bigger stations.’ So I inquired, and they said, ‘Well, you know, it just so happens that we’re including some smaller stations.’
[We] went through the application process that was fairly arduous. And we got in, we passed muster; and having Chris and Michele take off with the work was really great. We were able to put this great team together.
Diane: Chris and Michele, you came to WERU specifically for this project, to serve as producers and facilitators. So, in keeping with the spirit of “One Small Step,” I’d like to hear about your individual backgrounds and what made this feel like the right project for you.
Chris: As a multimedia producer, I’ve been working independently across film and video, photography, and audio production disciplines. I love interviewing for documentary work–and felt I did well–but I lacked more concrete facilitation skills. When Matt and Michele approached me with this opportunity, it felt–to use Matt’s words–like a little feather in my cap as a path towards more professional development.
Looking a little bit deeper, I’d found myself, during the first years of the pandemic, losing steam and a capacity to communicate meaningfully with my closest friends, some of whom I’ve known for more than 20 years. I’m from Los Angeles, and so I was not only experiencing disconnection because of geography but also by increasingly different viewpoints. It was then that I thought, ‘Oh, if I’m experiencing this, then other people are too.’
Michele: When this project came along, I was at what came to be the tail end of working for an international consulting firm with a workforce distributed across the globe. I was delighted that “One Small Step” allowed me to work locally and directly within my community/region.
I live in a small town, and sometimes it seems that my values are not outwardly reflected by the vast majority of people who live there. Previously, I’d lived in Portland, Oregon; Brooklyn, New York; western Massachusetts, in all these liberal bubbles. When I moved to this area, I was excited for the challenge of living in a place that wasn’t that.
Years ago, I served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Cameroon. A lot of the things that I learned in preparation for that experience were very relevant to this, in terms of having an open mind and meeting people where they are, and not trying to change their perspective, just holding space and learning. A few years ago, I did a 40-hour training in restorative practices. Rooted in indigenous knowledge-ways, restorative practices offer ways to maintain connection and repair harm. This “One Small Step” work feels very much in alignment with that. I don’t want to live in cancel culture. I want to call people in and respond from a place of curiosity, respect, and accountability.
Diane: Matt, you’ve talked about how you were attracted to this project from first hearing about it. Can you talk about why? What did you see in it that made this feel important for WERU to do?
Matt: We live in the Second Congressional District in Maine, which leans conservative; but we also have places, particularly along the coast, that lean liberal. Our region is definitely not of all one political bent. And so the idea of being able to see if we can help and facilitate different sides, different perspectives, talking together can only be a good thing in this polarized world.
And no other local media was really doing something like “One Small Step” that is bringing people together. And I thought, well, this is right up our alley. We ought to give it a try. WERU tends to have listeners [who are] on the progressive side of things. And there were a few people who said, ‘Well, I don’t know if talking with conservatives and getting these people together is going to work.’ And I think Michele really hits the nail on the head that being amongst people who don’t necessarily agree with me doesn’t mean I can’t have a conversation. It doesn’t mean that we can’t share those skills and that attitude with other people.
Chris: We are living in a climate where anything can be polarizing. Our communities [are made up of] young people and old, [with] totally different political beliefs, social standings, socio-economic standing–so many differences. [But] Mainers and maybe rural Mainers particularly pride themselves on being able to get along. We participate in pleasantries and we get on with our day.
I feel like this project sheds light on the many ways that people across their differences interact and allows people to question whether or not that’s working for them. Maybe, these “One Small Step” questions crack open conversations into territories that people, including myself, have forgotten to access. I want to be like the people that we shepherd through this process and come out the other side of these conversations more knowing, empathetic intimate and cordial with one another.
Michele: StoryCorps has done a lot of research into why “One Small Step” is so impactful. One of the things that they’ve learned is that even [knowing] that these kinds of conversations are happening, even if people don’t participate themselves, brings them hope. I love that because that hope is available for all of us, regardless of who we vote for.
Matt: I’ll say a little bit more about our area. The signal area of WERU takes about three hours to drive from one end to the other along the coast, and then it goes inland a way as well. The city of Bangor, which is about 30,000 people, is the big city in our signal area. And there’s a lot of towns that have 500 or fewer people. And tourism is really big, the hospitality industry, fishing, lumber. The town I live in used to have a paper mill in it, and it was a very blue collar town; and now, when the voting comes out, it’s about 50/50 Republican/Democrat. So it’s an interesting little melting pot politically. And then, in our listening area, the biggest employer in one of our counties is a genetics research lab. So you kind of go from some really traditional industries to some cutting edge scientific stuff. And Bangor is the big healthcare hub for northern and eastern Maine. So it’s a rural area with a lot of different aspects. I think that, in all of this variety, there are underlying tensions that can come out, and it somehow became okay to express them in a not so healthy [way].
Diane: Let’s talk next about how the program actually works, from the beginning through to the conversations, about the mechanisms, the training, about how StoryCorps helps you. How did you find people? How did you match people? .
Michele: Chris and I both participated in an 18-hour training last year before the program started. We received a recording kit with a Zoom recorder, microphones, laptop, camera, etc. as well as training for facilitating the conversations themselves, for recruiting, and outreach.
Chris: StoryCorps hosts monthly huddles with the other stations in our cohort, providing very direct access to their team and leadership. They provide a wealth of knowledge and resources for this program, in addition to the gear that Michele outlined–plus it all came in [a] rolling suitcase. StoryCorps has been developing a robust toolkit for years, including the ways to identify matches among the pool of participants who signed up.
Michele: Like never positioning people together based on their identities alone.
Using StoryCorps specialized database, “Matchmatron,” we select people that we think would be a good match, then we call them for a screening, feeling out if they’d be a good participant in the program and then line them up with each other. Each person gets an email that has a one-paragraph introduction to their conversation partner.
Chris: Each station in this program has very different personnel and thus slightly different approaches. Michele and I became adamant about trying to do as many conversations in person as we could, since that’s where we felt real successful connections were made.
Michele: There’s a sort of arc to the conversations.
First, they ask each other what brought them here today, what made them want to do a “One Small Step” conversation. Then, they read each other’s bios out loud in the first person and ask, ‘Is there one thing from my bio that you want to know more about?’
We also try, before that conversation even starts, to encourage people to get as personal as they’re comfortable with. For these conversations to be powerful; they have to be based in storytelling and personal stories, not platform, not a debate, And once they’ve sort of established a bit of connection, then they get into differences, and sometimes we find people out in the parking lot afterwards, still talking. Some people go for coffee with each other afterwards. Other people might never want to see each other again. We’ve seen it all. We try to make them as safe as we can, but we can’t guarantee that no harm will be done. Participants agree to ground rules in advance of the conversations, but it is vulnerable.
Diane: I do want to hear more about the aftermath of this project; about those conversations in the parking lot; but, before we go there, I’d like to go back to something Matt said in our emails about waiting to do this interview now in order to talk about the future. WERU is about to launch a second year of “One Small Step” as an alumni station. So what are your plans. Is this year going to be different?
Michele: As an alumni station, our [goals] are a little bit different than what they were first time around. Last year, we did 25 conversations. This time around, we’re only doing eight recorded one-on-one conversations. We’re hoping that the majority of those will be intergenerational conversations.
Chris: We’re an older community. We’re one of the oldest states, and I think Waldo County is one of the oldest counties in the state.
Matt: Maine is always in the top two or three for age. And this elder and youth conversation is so important because we definitely need young people.
When a young person comes to the radio station, they’re sort of a rock star before they do anything because they’re not retired. So, for Maine to have young people fully engaged and connected in our communities and culture with the people who’ve been here for a long time is really critically important for the health of our communities.
Michele: [And, as an alumni station,] we’re also going to be doing two training events in communities and then one public event that brings everything all together.
Recently, we did a training with Building Bridges Maine, a Braver Angels affiliate. We went over the purpose of “One Small Step” and led participants through a mini-“One Small Step” conversation. The goal was to introduce folks to the concept of bridging these types of conversations, humanizing people who might think differently than we do, and to provide folks with an opportunity to practice.
Chris: {And} our hope is to partner with some of the students working with Torchlight–a media production studio in Belfast offering educational support and workshops through the Maine Department of Education’s Extended Learning Opportunity (ELO) program. ELOs are hands-on, credit-bearing experiences outside of the traditional classroom with an emphasis on community-based career exploration. Since January 2024, 10-12 high schoolers from the Belfast area have been working across photo, video and audio disciplines through Torchlight’s Youth Multimedia Mentorship program. This would be a great setting to train them in some of the “One Small Step” skills–facilitating conversations, listening skills. We’re also in conversation with some other local, human services organizations about training their staff, but we don’t have concrete details around this just yet.
These trainings and workshops may not be big, grand affairs, but they’ll be important work. StoryCorps seeks to identify new ways to do outreach and then have communities become bigger anchors in helping to do their work for and with collaborators.
Matt: [And] I’m really happy that WERU has played a role in starting something locally that helps overcome polarization in our communities, possibly on a day-to-day basis.
Diane: That’s what makes your work in this second year so special. This expanded training aspect of the program introduces the practice of empathetic listening beyond controlled, facilitated conversations into day-to-day, real-world life situations.
Matt: I haven’t touched base with Chris and Michele on this yet, but we [also] have a plan to reach out to WVOM, which is a commercial station that’s a very conservative talk radio station, and their programming is very different than our programming. They, if they’re aware of us, would probably be horrified by Democracy Now, just as we’re probably horrified by Glenn Beck or, back in the day, Rush Limbaugh. But we’ve reached out to them to see if they want to help us get the word out to their constituency, to their listeners. But for WERU to reach out to WVOM is a pretty radical thing. So we’re trying as a station and as a team to facilitate this “One Small Step” and actually to practice it as an institution a little bit as well.
Diane: What a great idea! Thank you. That’s another really exciting application.
So now let’s move to your sense of the community responses, the impact that this has had. And, Matt, I think I’d like to start with you on this because both Chris and Michele were there at the recording of the conversations, but you heard them when they were done. So what struck you about them? What do you take away from what you saw as the impact on participants and for you and the station?
Matt: Well, I heard from so many people, this is anecdotal, of course, saying, ‘Oh, it’s so good that you’re doing that.’ It’s a home run before anyone even hears any of the pieces from the conversations. And some say, ‘Where do I go for more information?’ whether they want to participate or not or just listen. Some were able to [see] our website post and then a link to StoryCorps.
And then people who’ve heard [the recordings] thought they were moving and inspiring. Others say, ‘Oh, I’d love to hear that. I want to get in on that.’ So a range of being interested, inspired, and then wanting to participate or learn more.
And then, people [who] came to the listening event [said] ‘It’s so cool that you’re doing this.’ That audience would have stayed for another two hours if we let them. They were rapt.
Diane: Are there any particular moments that stick with you from the conversations?
Matt: Phil and Sue. They were captivating, listening to the two of them talk about how they had nothing in common when they came together and then they wound up carpooling to the [listening] event and how they keep in touch. I thought that was particularly inspiring.
Michele: There was a conversation we did between a self-described “hippie Christian” physician and a Penobscot two spirit organizer/parent that addressed queerness, coming out, political values, genocide, and parenting. It was a really vulnerable and powerful conversation.
Typically, as facilitators, we don’t know what participants do with their conversations after they are put online. Just the other day, I happened to see that one of the participants from that conversation shared on Facebook noting that [they’d] finally got up the gumption to listen to the conversation and they wanted to share it as a learning tool. I felt both honored and relieved that they wanted to share it in that way. Now other people are sharing it and listening to it. I love that these conversations can become resources/learning tools.
Diane: That’s rewarding. I’ve heard the recording of the listening event and heard the community responses.
Michele: My sense is that most of the folks who came thought it was great. [But] our audience, generally speaking, has tended to be more liberal, more Democratic leaning. That’s a deficit. This is a bipartisan-funded program. It’s wasn’t created just for liberals to feel good.
What I would like to see is this message getting out across all aisles, all political beliefs, all backgrounds, all economic situations. This is for everyone.
Diane: Do you see people in your community talking about initiating conversations on their own? Are they continuing these kinds of conversations?
Chris: One woman who participated last year, as soon as we finished the conversation, hosted conversations at her library, just 20 minutes away, Michele facilitated a conversation with her She was so enthused about it. She said to me, ‘We’re already starting. We already have the plans.’ The interest is clearly there. We just need the tools, and so now StoryCorps is giving us the DIY tools.
Michele: I’m seeing a lot more of that kind of conversation happening. We’ve had fruitful conversations with Waldo County Bounty, which does food distribution, and Out in the Open, which is a rural queer organizing group, Waldo County Community Action Partners. People seem to be enthusiastic about moving towards plurality and away from polarizing rhetoric.
Matt: And I’m still hopeful that WVOM will get Chris and Michele to be guests on the station. To be there and talk and be able to reach across the aisle is something that we really want to do.
Diane: And that connects to something else I wanted to ask, Matt. What do you believe this program reveals about the importance of community radio, about how, maybe, community radio is the perfect medium for outreach, for putting the program into effect, not only person to person, but audience to audience or community to community?
Matt: I don’t think [WVOM] is going to stop airing Howie Carr and Glenn Beck. And we’re not going to stop airing Democracy Now. But the point is that you can listen to different things and still talk to someone who listens to the other.
Diane: You know, I was slow to realize that WERU’s call letters spell out as WE-ARE-YOU, and I recently saw on the station website that your motto is to be a “voice of many voices.” This project suits you.
POSTSCRIPT
Congratulations to WERU whose work with “One Small Step” will be recognized by the Maine Association of Broadcasters (MAB) with a News & Creative Award for Radio Feature at this year’s annual MAB Awards Gala.
And…
Congratulations to WJFF—Radio Catskill (Jefferson, NY) on its recent selection as a 2024 “One Small Step” radio hub!
In 1952, Lewis Hill, founder of Pacifica Radio. wrote about the increasing isolation of contemporary life and asked how we might prepare to meet “The Man at the Door,” the intruder with a different point of view.
The door must be opened, he declared.*
*Information drawn from Matthew Lasar’s Pacifica Radio: The Rise of an Alternative Network, “Preface,” x, in which he cites Lewis Hill, “The Private Room,” Beacon: The Bulletin of the Mental Health Society of Southern California (Fall, 1952) 1.
All photos used with permission of WERU radio. Alamo Theater photo by Jack-Sullivan.