Stephen Snyder
Senior Radio Producer
Stephen Snyder works in the Boston newsroom of PRI's The World. He manages a variety of tasks, but they all boil down to making news stories relevant and interesting to people.
Peabody Award-winning radio producer Stephen Snyder joined The World staff in 1998. Then the president was in the middle of impeachment and launched cruise missiles into Sudan to try to destroy Al Qaeda. India and Pakistan seemed to be on the brink of a nuclear war. The world economy was on a boom that seemed to be benefiting only the wealthy. Then, as now, Snyder's job was to help The World make the news beyond our borders understandable, interesting. Now, as then, he writes the daily 30-second radio ads that preview stories coming up on The World. Sometimes he helps write and produce the stories themselves. Snyder also helps public radio stations — maybe yours — to make The World a successful part of their broadcast day. He writes the short fundraising messages that you may hear anchor Marco Werman read on the air during public radio pledge drives. Several times a month he directs the radio program, and gets to drive our roller coaster of an hour through reports, interviews, host intros and musical bridges, all the while watching the clock to make sure we don't collide with a newscast or a station break. Before joining The World he was senior producer of public radio’s “Sound & Spirit." From 1989-1995 he produced the Peabody Award-winning children’s news program “Kid Company” on WBZ in Boston. Before that he was a professional musician. He still makes music.
Out of Eden Walk: Cellophane oasis
National Geographic Explorer Paul Salopek tells Host Carolyn Beeler about walking the modern Silk Roads through Asia and into South Korea, where village markets, souks and caravanserais are reincarnated as convenience stores that perfectly serve the needs of a traveler on foot.
Out of Eden Walk: Korea’s Stone Age
National Geographic Explorer Paul Salopek tells Host Carolyn Beeler about Suyanggae, South Korea, an archaeological zone with rare and precious relics of the peoples who first arrived there up to 46,000 years ago. He observes that the Stone Age represents about 99% of human history, and most of that unrecorded human experience remains unknown.
Out of Eden Walk: Walking Gangnam Style
An affluent neighborhood of Seoul is the latest stretch of National Geographic Explorer Paul Salopek’s worldwide walking journey. He tells Host Carolyn Beeler about the Gangnam entertainment district, its important links to K-pop, and the hyper-competitive career paths young people have pursued to stardom.
Out of Eden Walk: Walking the DMZ
Kim Jong Un’s destruction of roads and rail links to South Korea this week illustrated the ongoing tensions on the Korean Peninsula. But as National Geographic Explorer Paul Salopek discovered while walking there, the demilitarized zone that has divided North from South for 71 years can be a quiet, peaceful stretch of land — and water. He shares his observations with Host Carolyn Beeler.
Out of Eden Walk: Walking through western China
In China’s southern province of Yunnan, a community known as the Bai expresses itself mostly by singing. And they have a song for everything: from history lessons to mourning to flirting. Host Marco Werman speaks with National Geographic Explorer Paul Salopek, who also discusses the early 20th century Austrian-American botanist and explorer Joseph Rock, who traveled through this same region of western China.
