Susan Stamberg

And it did.

Oh, sure.

Sure, yeah.

No, they don't say Jewish.

They say New York, and I always hear that as Jewish and maybe more than a little anti-Semitic.

I certainly didn't and don't sound like people who are on the radio today.

I really don't.

I have a distinctive sound, and it is, you're right, I'm a New Yorker and I'm Jewish.

Well, in those days, I was also editing my own tapes.

I mean, we had these skinny little skeletal staffs, so you had to do everything.

And I think it was in editing my own work really taught me a lot.

It taught me to hate that stiff sound that I was trying so hard to produce, to say I could hear how phony it was, and I just decided to stop.

We had those every other day.

The tape would keep breaking or the tape wouldn't arrive in the control room on time.

I can remember a very early program in which I introduced something.

The tape went on the air, and the director, Rich Firestone, said in my head, said, wait a minute, the tape's on backwards.

Phil, and threw my microphone on, and I talked and talked and talked.

He got the tape, he turned it around, he ran it again, and he said in my ear, wrong, it's Russian.

Phil again.

It wasn't backwards.