Today is a momentous day here at KQED. Mark Trautwein, editor of Perspectives for the past quarter-century, is retiring. So today, instead of working off the mic, Mark will give his Perspective.
You’ll have to ask KQED why they hired me in the first place. I hadn’t been an editor. I hadn’t worked in radio. I’d been a reporter, briefly.
My most substantial resume line revealed me to be a Congressional legislative aide for two decades.
So when I came to KQED, I had little idea what I was doing.
But reading many tens of thousands of submissions over the years, while putting more than 6,000 pieces on the air, I may have learned a thing or two.
I learned the power of the voice to make or break a story. I learned that sometimes the best editing is just to leave it alone. I’ve learned that we need to give more platforms for folks who are often overlooked or underrepresented in the media.
But what I learned most of all, is that everyone has a story.
We share a precious space, all of us, no matter our circumstances, defined by the stories we tell.
Stories of compassion and perseverance, of gratitude and hope, of courage and, yes, despair and fear. Perspectives provides a space for those stories and the human connection they offer.
I am often asked what am I looking for in a submission but its what I’ve found in what I wasn’t looking for that moved me, the story never imagined, the life I never lived, the thought I never held.
Perspectives – as a radio platform — is so much more than two minutes of self-indulgence. It’s the middle or high school student finding a voice, the mother fighting cancer, the victim of gun violence pleading for sanity, the immigrant navigating a new culture, the familiar becoming unfamiliar, the unfamiliar becoming known.
It’s also a place where an editor engages writers to help grow their writing skills and confidence to express themselves, to write clearly and concisely and never forget that the point of a piece is to make a point. Its humbling to know so many of them value that relationship.
So I leave Perspectives knowing that your stories have enriched my life as I trust they have enriched yours. Because what is a story if it’s not shared with others?
And now I finally get to say, for the first time,
With a Perspective, I’m Mark Trautwein.
Mark Trautwein lives in San Anselmo.
