Michael May

Michael May is a freelance radio and print reporter based in Boston.

Michael May teaches radio documentary at the Salt Institute in Portland, ME and is a radio and print freelancer. Before that, he was the managing editor of the Texas Observer. For more than a decade, he reported from Austin, where he investigated an idiosyncratic FBI informant named Brandon Darby, heard Willie Nelson sing “Amazing Grace” a capella and discovered that a police“bait car” can snare good Samaritans. His stories ended up on This American LifeStudio 360Marketplace, The Austin Chronicle and others. He has also worked as an editor for the national radio show Weekend America and a news reporter at the Austin NPR station KUT-FM. For his radio work, May has won a Third Coast Audio Festival Gold Award and a National Headliners Grand Award.


Comedian Shecky Greene performs in 1976.

Tough crowd

Culture

Vegas comics remember their underworld bosses.

Willie Nelson performs in 2015.

Aha Moment: Willie Nelson on ‘Amazing Grace’

Aha Moments
The World

Willie Nelson

Arts, Culture & Media

Viruses at the Movies

Arts, Culture & Media
Legal justice team

A ‘LEGO provocateur’ pushes the company to add female characters

Culture
Whales

How pop music helped save the whales

Music

If you hear whale songs today, you might be getting a massage or a facial. Some recordings of humpback whales feature slow melodies — soothing enough for spa soundtracks. But not too long ago, in the early 1970s, the songs of whale songs ignited the passions of music listeners and animal activists, leading to a gold record for singer Judy Collins and a worldwide movement to save the whales.

The World

Devo

Arts, Culture & Media

You know them for their catchy futuristic-disco song “Whip It” and their iconic flowerpot-like head gear, but Devo has surprisingly serious origins. After witnessing the killings at Kent State, the band came together to address the heavy issues of the day in their music when no other bands would. Produced by Michael May.

A water merchant in Nairobi sells to the city's poor.

Women unite in the slums of Nairobi to provide clean water

Business

In the slums of Nairobi, Kenya is a project to get clean water to the poor run by a cooperative of women. These women address a more subtle type of conflict,that between the “haves and the have-nots,” a sort of ”urban water wars.”

A water merchant in Nairobi sells to the city's poor.

Women unite in the slums of Nairobi to provide clean water

Business

In the slums of Nairobi, Kenya is a project to get clean water to the poor run by a cooperative of women. These women address a more subtle type of conflict,that between the “haves and the have-nots,” a sort of ”urban water wars.”

Turkana Women

Why some Kenyan villagers take AK-47s to fetch water

Culture

On the border with South Sudan, is a Turkana village called Loblono, in Northern Kenya. These Turkana people have survived for centuries in one of the harshest landscapes on earth, the dry-as-a-bone desert that also stretches across South Sudan and Somalia. They live a nomadic lifestyle based on herding cattle, chasing the rain and the grasslands that sprout from the desert when it’s wet.
The Turkana have always been in conflict with neighboring tribes, like the Poquot and the Taposas. But, in recent years, dwindling water supplies have exacerbated the conflict on this smallest of scales. On the border with South Sudan, is a Turkana village called Loblono, in Northern Kenya. These Turkana people have survived for centuries in one of the harshest landscapes on earth, the dry-as-a-bone desert that also stretches across South Sudan and Somalia. They live a nomadic lifestyle based on herding cattle, chasing the rain and the grasslands that sprout from the desert when it’s wet.
The Turkana have always been in conflict with neighboring tribes, like the Poquot and the Taposas. But, in recent years, dwindling water supplies have exacerbated the conflict on this smallest of scales.