Mike Paterniti

speaker

232 appearances 2 recordings 1 series first heard Mar 2026 last heard 28 Jun

Mike Paterniti’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 1.

Appearances

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This American Life · 628: In the Shadow of the City · 15 Mar 2026 podcast

I mean, he wasn't looking at me when he answered questions, but he was answering them and he was speaking more expansively about life on the bridge.

Did he explain why it is that he does this?

He said he had read a newspaper article about the bridge and about people jumping off the bridge.

And he himself had grown up in the country outside of Nanjing.

So he really related in particular to these people from the villages who came to the bridge to end their lives and whose lives were hard and full of despair.

And he completely understood that.

Yeah, and then he jumped on his moped to go on his rounds.

And I didn't have anything to do, but I turned to the translator, Susan, and I said, hey, let's take a little walk out on the bridge.

And so we started walking out over the bridge, and we're chatting a little bit.

And this guy kind of came lurching by, and I didn't pay any attention to him.

But this guy's about 20 feet, 30 feet ahead of us, and he seems to be climbing up on the railing.

And at that point, I just yelled, hey.

Hey.

And then I said to Susan, he's going to go over.

And I started running for him, and Susan came running.

And I had that one little flash of Mr. Chen saying, you know, some of these people will really take you with them if they can.

They're that desperate.

And I had that little flash, like, this would be a stupid way to die.

This would be ridiculous if I... Yeah.

go down with this guy.

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