They showed me letters they had received from famous rich New Yorkers from whom they had solicited funds through a letter campaign. Isay says he found the couple's tale very poignant. I went through the Yellow Pages to find radio stations to send a reporter to get this couple's story out. I eventually called WBAI-FM, which told me to go out and record the story myself and send it in. I borrowed a tape recorder, I taped their story, edited it as best I could, and sent it in.
Grants are essential money because public radio usually pays by the minute of actual air time.
I learned to make myself disappear and let the people tell their own stories. In 1993, he co-founded a nonprofit production company called Sound Portraits with a transcriber he had worked with, Stacy Abramson. Together, they edited tapes on donated Macintosh computers. The company finally broke even last year, thanks to the half-million dollar MacArthur Award. He says he now has a perfect life.