Colby Magazine | Summer 2001

"I was totally young and I said, 'I can't, I have to do a story for KQED. I said I'd do stories for them, and since I'm a younger, not-so-experienced reporter, I think the most prudent thing to do is to tell you I shouldn't do the story.' There was a pause, and the national editor kind of laughed and said, 'That's really cute, Chris, but we need a story for tomorrow morning. Three and a half minutes.' And he hung up."

As the only reporter in the flooded area, Arnold found himself filing live reports on a cell phone from a canoe on swollen rivers. He watched people get helicoptered off roofs and stand on tables in their homes while the water rose to electrical outlets. At the end of the year, he won several awards for his reports and his use of sound.

But most important, he got noticed at NPR. Six months later, when a position opened up on the national desk, Arnold applied and got it.

As a young man, Gerry Hadden also went west. After graduating from Colby with a degree in German, he traveled theworld for a year, then moved to New York, where he worked in publishing because he knew he wanted to be a writer. Only he didn't know what kind.

"After three years in book publishing," said Hadden, "I had learned, I think, what I was going to learn about how to get published. And I was dying sitting behind a desk. So not knowing exactly what else to do, I did a big thing. I just shook everything up and moved to the other coast and said, 'I want to be a writer. I don't know what that means exactly, but I can't stay in this inertia that I'm in, and I can't work behind a desk or I'll go insane.'"

For about a year, Hadden bummed around Seattle, doing temp work, writing fiction (which appeared in Story and Icarus magazines) and bragging to his New York friends that he liked to work three weeks and take the fourth one off. But soon a new angst settled in.

"After about a year, I realized that I was more ambitious than I had thought, and I started to feel antsy, intellectually. Then I just stumbled into an internship at the local NPR station. And the first day I walked in the door, I thought, 'I'm going to do everything in my power to never leave this world.' Because it really felt like the first job in my life that I liked, besides being a taxi driver." And aside from two months he took off to write the text for Home Tree Home, a book about how to build treehouses, he's never left that world.

Hadden's internship evolved into some "cut and copy" work (writing the news), then reporting. And then he got called to fill in for Mandalit Del Barco, who left her post in Los Angeles for a Fulbright Scholarship. After four months in L.A., Hadden found himself in Mexico City, looking for a place to live.

The paths to NPR are as varied as the stories you hear on it. But one rule is always the same.

"You can't just graduate from school and apply and get a job," said Arnold. "It's totally a trade. It's like being a carpenter or something. You've got to learn it, and you've got to wade in and you've got to make absolutely no money for a few years . . . You've got to bust your ass for a few years and get through a lot of crap to get to the point where you're good enough that somebody would actually hire you. But the thing is, even after you do that, there's absolutely no guarantee you're going to get hired. There are five good people for every job."

In other words, you work hard, you get a break, and you take it.

Both Hadden and Arnold know how lucky they are, and both seem to love their work–mining the sounds and voices and stories around them and shaping these into something for us to hear. Not only that, but they seem to have fun and to love the way their work has opened their eyes.

"It's a free pass to walk into people's lives all across the country," said Arnold. "I just love it. I've always loved it. I love telling stories. Every few days, or every week, I get to go out and meet some totally new person and ask them any question I want about their life and then come back and turn that into a story for other people to hear. It's like throwing people's personal stories out there on the air for other people to learn from and think about."

Hadden agrees. "I feel like it's the greatest, most creative niche to have landed in," he said. "You can make a people or a country or place come to life for somebody in a way that print and TV can't. I think TV is indispensable on certain levels. But in general, I think radio can touch people on a deeper level." And despite the stress of having such a huge area to cover, Hadden still wouldn't trade his half-continent beat for a desk job. The expanse for which he is responsible is even a blessing.

"Because the region is so huge," he said, "it frees me up to cover the most important stories or the most interesting stories or to really poke around and try to show the face of a country or culture that people might not be used to hearing about. And finally, when I start to get overwhelmed, I remind myself that I get paid to travel and be curious and tell stories. It's the greatest job in the world."

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Diversity Call Renewed: Students, President Bro Adams, faculty and others join in effort to appreciate and accentuate differences.
Making Waves: An inside look at the news you love to hear--from Colbians.
A Simple Feast: Wylie Dufresne '92 is one of the hottest chefs in New York City.
President's Page: President Bro Adams on the court and affirmative action.
Commencement 2001
Alumni Reunion 2001