Yowei Shaw

When's the last time we were on the mic together?

This is Brian Reed, a man who hit podcasts fall out of.

You might have heard of his little show, S-Town, or his other little show, The Trojan Horse Affair.

Brian now makes the podcast Question Everything, trying to make sense of what the heck is going on with journalism today.

I met Brian when we worked together on my first big story, back in 2013, an entire hour of This American Life.

It was this really high-stakes story about Eritrean refugees trying to get to Europe, but were then taken hostage by smugglers, often tortured in all sorts of horrific ways, and forced to ask their families for huge amounts of ransom.

I, as a reporter, felt way out of my depth.

But I was lucky to have Brian as my producer, coaching me in interviews, helping me write scripts, making sure I didn't fuck up.

He was patient.

He made me feel safe.

He also made working on a decidedly not-fun story, dare I say, fun at times.

We'd spend all day cooped up in a hotel room, listening to hostage calls.

We'd huddle around a laptop speaker, our translator telling us what was happening, occasionally breaking down in tears, while Brian and I furiously typed, trying to get down everything he said.

It would be hours and hours of this.

But then, Brian would force us to go out to a bar, buy a round of beers, get us talking about our lives, joking, laughing.

In other words, Brian knew how to manage the vibes to make sure we didn't get stuck in the heavy.

I didn't tell Brian any of this back then, but I cherish that time together.

So when I ran into him at a conference last fall, I was excited to catch up.

He was like, what's up with you?

And I showed him a photo of myself pole dancing in a clean Xbox costume and told him about the show I was developing.