Love How Doug Fabrizio Reads the Books

U p on the eastern edge of the University of Utah campus, it is v a.k., and the Eccles Circulate Middle is subdued and night. The soothing British voices of the BBC World News are quietly wrapping upward, and NPR's Morning time Edition is nearly to launch into its jaunty theme song. In this interstitial moment, from his corner office, Doug Fabrizio BA'88 pauses to look upwards from the book he is reading to regard the twinkling lights in the valley below and jot downwards a question.

It is yet another morning in Table salt Lake City, and once again the vocalization of RadioWest is preparing. Most of his enquiry happens in these wee hours, cramming like a student during finals week, every week. Another topic, another 60 minutes, more than guests, some other book, some other film, some other set up of notes and questions, another twenty-four hours, another morning, another show, and on and on and on. This yr, Fabrizio is quietly jubilant his 30th year at KUER, and this summer, RadioWest will pass the 3,000-show mark. And, yes. He does read all those books. Every. One.

'I FOUND MY SPOT Here'

In 1987-88, Fabrizio was in his final yr of written report at the U. He had started college with designs to be an role player and, although he loved his theater courses and acting, his practical side steered him toward majoring in communication. Ane day, he walked into the campus radio station and never left.

"I was volunteering at KUER as a senior," Fabrizio recalls. "I pitched this idea for a prove. Sunday nights were kind of a pigsty in the programming dorsum then. At that place wasn't much going on, and I had this idea to make a news magazine bear witness. We' d piece together all these great pieces from around public radio into this program."

It was chosen Sunday Periodical, and its product became a survey class in great radio storytelling for the immature Fabrizio. The early '90s were a woolly time in public radio here and effectually the country. Commercial radio was still ascendant, and a career in public radio was deemed more similar a Peace Corps assignment than an actual chore. Basically, if you think public radio is cool nowadays, and so this was its awkward adolescence.

"In that location was a vacuum to be filled," Fabrizio says, "And in that location were non a lot of barriers to entry. You could go to NPR in Washington and say, 'Can I help yous guys cut tape?' That is how a lot of radio producers got started—just showing up and putting in the piece of work. I plant my spot hither."

Six years later, at age 24, he would become KUER's youngest-ever news director and would beginning a show called Fri Edition, the progenitor of RadioWest.

'I AM CONSTANTLY TERRIFIED'

RadioWest aired its first broadcast on May 21, 2001. The topic was polygamy, which remains a perennial favorite. It is the third most pop show on KUER, winning the Bronze respectfully behind NPR heavyweights Morn Edition and All Things Considered. (Accept that, Prairie Home Companion.) Before this year, RadioWest moved from its longtime 11 a.m. slot to 9 a.m., where it takes the toss from Morn Edition. Every calendar week, 60,000 people tune in to hear Fabrizio calmly walk through an hour of single-topic programming.

"The thing for me was creating these long stories," Fabrizio says. "Listeners here [in Utah] wanted the same thing they wanted from NPR, and I believed nosotros had the ability to deliver that depth locally. I've e'er bristled against those types of people who, when you have an thought, they say 'Hither's the trouble.' I'thousand interested in saying, 'Let'southward endeavor information technology.' "

RadioWest's format is a rarity in today's frenetic media landscape. The bear witness's dedicated listeners hear frank and detailed interviews with luminaries from around the state and the world. Fabrizio has interviewed the Dalai Lama, Spike Lee, Isabel Allende, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Desmond Tutu among his thousands of notable guests. It's less of a Q&A session and more a conversation that Fabrizio steers. Although he'll draft dozens of questions for a show, he won't get to many of them. Rather, he uses them at touchpoints to guide the conversation, draw out his guests, and allow them to unpack complicated ideas.

"I have an order in mind when I start the bear witness," he says. "There is a sense of theater to it, and I effort to get the conversation to motility in that club, to motion in a certain way and to keep it moving. The conversation should always proceed moving, and it should go a certain direction in existent time. I can't spend an hr and a one-half; I have to discover the best hour."

It's a high-wire human activity, performed, most days, live. Merely even when it's taped for scheduling reasons, Fabrizio and his producers keep a "live-to-tape" ethic and don't rely much on editing or trimming. This philosophy gives the testify an urgent intimacy, while the longer format allows his guests to range much further than typical soundbites and talking points. But, information technology just works if Fabrizio is on his game.

"I am constantly terrified," Fabrizio confesses. "The people on the show are all doing of import, interesting work. I have to honour that by being prepared."

Only RadioWest producer Ben Bombard says, above all, Fabrizio is at-home, or, at to the lowest degree, he seems at-home, which makes the high-wire human activity possible.

"He sets a good case," Bombard says. "There are moments in radio when things exercise not go every bit planned, and while we're struggling to deal with it and cope with information technology, Doug is calm. He tin can't bring tension into the mic."

'HE DOESN'T COAST'

Fabrizio is a part of life here in Utah. He'due south in our cars, in our kitchens. His voice comes in and out of our lives constantly—then much and then that information technology's like shooting fish in a barrel to take for granted. You're lost in your thoughts, driving habitation after the day, and his phonation just floats out of the radio until something he says grabs your attention and you tune in to the chat, maybe staying in your driveway to hear its decision. It's easy because Fabrizio makes it sound easy.

Longtime colleague and RadioWest producer Elaine Clark MA'98 says that Fabrizio'due south ability to smoothly navigate an hour-long plan and depict his subjects out is a one-two dial of talent and hard piece of work.

"He's not faking that sincerity," Clark says. "Information technology's non clever editing or fume and mirrors. He is just a difficult worker, dedicated to making great radio. He doesn't coast on talent. It'due south taxing."

"It is taxing, yes," Fabrizio chuckles. "Merely what makes every show worth doing is this procedure of discovery. It starts with me; for the most part the producers are running down ideas that reflect my wildly diverse interests. I'm curious virtually a ton of stuff, and it never gets deadening. I'k always asking, 'What is that near?' and that'south how a prove begins. And to make that prove plow into a chat? Now that's exciting."

Utah author and frequent RadioWest invitee Brooke Williams BS'74 explains it this way: "I'1000 e'er impressed at how creatively confident he is. You don't go a sense that he's but going through a list of questions. He is really creating the evidence on the fly, and it makes it seem like a chat at a bar. It is miraculous to me."

RadioWest arrogance weekdays at 9 a.m. on KUER 90.1 with rebroacasts each day at seven p.one thousand. It is likewise bachelor for download and streamed live at kuer.org.

—Jeremy Pugh is a one-time editor of Table salt Lake magazine and a freelance author living in Common salt Lake City.

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Source: https://continuum.utah.edu/features/still-riding-the-waves/

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