Isay joins documentarian Ken Burns, journalist Rick Atkinson, the late journalist Studs Terkel, film maker Steven Spielberg and broadcaster Tom Brokaw on the list of recipients. In choosing Isay, the Rutgers Living History Society’s award selection committee said the veteran radio broadcaster “has created a greater public awareness of the value of oral history by promoting in a major way its basic premise: telling your story.”
StoryCorps’ technique is simple. People record high-quality interviews with friends or family in a secluded booth, guided by a trained StoryCorps facilitator. Since its founding in 2003, StoryCorps has recorded more than 30,000 interviews across the country. The stories are preserved in a special archive at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress and selected stories are broadcast on NPR each week.
"It's a terrific honor to receive this award, and to be in such amazing company,” Isay said. “It's also a great privilege to be honored by the Rutgers Living History Society, which has done and continues to do such intrepid work in the field of oral history.”
Isay is a native of New Haven, Connecticut, and grew up there and in New York City. He graduated from New York University in 1987. Prior to creating StoryCorps, Isay founded Sound Portraits Productions, which helped bring neglected American voices to a national audience. Sound Portraits was known not just for its cutting-edge radio documentaries but also for its innovative approaches to disseminating ideas, sparking discussion and broadening the national debate on such issues as poverty, juvenile justice, prison and race. Sound Portraits pioneered a new technique in radio journalism: giving people in hard-to-reach corners of America access to a tape recorder and microphone and helping them tell their own stories.
Isay is the author/editor of four books that grew out of his public radio documentary work, including two StoryCorps books – Listening Is an Act of Love (Penguin, 2007) and the recently released Mom: A Celebration of Mothers from StoryCorps (Penguin, 2010). Featuring more than 30 conversations between parents and children, husbands and wives, siblings and friends in StoryCorps booths across the country, Mom presents a moving portrait of motherhood, as told by Americans of all walks of life and experiences.
Media Contact: Ken Branson
732-932-7084, ext. 633
E-mail: kbranson@ur.rutgers.edu