Ira Glass

Ira Jeffrey Glass born on March 3, 1959, in Baltimore, Maryland, began his career in radio as a teenager. His parents, Barry and Shirley Glass, exposed him to the arts from a young age, with his father working as a radio announcer and his mother as a clinical psychologist. As a high school student at Milford Mill High School, Glass was involved in the yearbook staff, literary magazine, and drama club, experiences that shaped his storytelling style. He initially pursued a pre-medical path at Northwestern University before transferring to Brown University, where he earned a BA in semiotics in 1982. These early experiences provided a foundation for his distinct approach to journalism, which he describes as being influenced by musicals.

Glass started working at NPR in 1978 at the age of 19, interning at their headquarters in Washington, D.C. He spent 17 years at NPR, progressing from tape-cutter to reporter and host for programs such as “Morning Edition,” “All Things Considered,” and “Talk of the Nation.” In 1989, he moved to Chicago and co-hosted “The Wild Room” on WBEZ. A significant turning point came in 1995 when the MacArthur Foundation provided a grant, leading to the creation of “This American Life.” The show, initially airing as “Your Radio Playhouse” in November 1995 and renamed “This American Life” in March 1996, quickly gained national syndication and critical acclaim, winning a Peabody Award within six months.

Under Glass’s leadership, “This American Life” evolved, transitioning from a mix of fiction and journalism to a focus on in-depth storytelling and reporting. The program’s success led to a two-season television adaptation on Showtime from 2007 to 2009. Glass has authored books such as “Radio: An Illustrated Guide” (1999) and “The New Kings of Nonfiction” (2007), and has collaborated on several feature films, including co-writing and producing Mike Birbiglia’s “Sleepwalk with Me” (2012) and producing “Come Sunday” (2018). He regularly tours with live shows discussing storytelling. In 2020, Glass and the “This American Life” team received the inaugural Pulitzer Prize for Audio Reporting for their episode “The Out Crowd.”