Courtesy of Nine PBS
Living St. Louis producers Brooke Butler, Jim Kirchherr, Ruth Ezell, and Anne-Marie Berger
At the office of Nine PBS’ Living St. Louis, part of the space has been transformed into the new set of the TV newsmagazine program, and the phones at the desks have been unplugged. It’s quiet on the set as the show’s four producers—Jim Kirchherr, Anne-Marie Berger, Ruth Ezell, and Brooke Butler—assemble to shoot segments. But just because it’s quiet doesn’t mean it’s not action-packed. Standing in a jumble of orange, red, and yellow cords, a cameraman directs Kirchherr to scooch over to the left. A young woman holds up cue cards that count down the number of minutes, then seconds, to the time when the cameras will roll. Ezell, in a fuchsia twin set, is doing a piece on ragtime rediscovery and the Scott Joplin house. As soon as she introduces the taped segment, it’s a shuffle to pull out her earpiece and set her up at a pair of chairs where her next interview, writer and Mill Creek historian Vivian Gibson, is waiting.
Fans of the 20-year-old show, which has won more than 30 Emmys and spotlights both notable and under-the-radar people and places in St. Louis, have likely noticed the sleeker setting and different format. Producer Berger says that the show’s team had been considering for a few years how to rework the show to allow for more variety in segment lengths and to more wisely use resources—stand-ups around the city are time-consuming. “We also wanted to be able to address more public affairs issues in shorter interview segments,” she says, a couple of days after airing an interview with Explore St. Louis president Kitty Ratcliffe. “We can be more current by doing it this way.”
Three producers, Kirchherr, Berger, and Ezell, have been with the show since the beginning. “We've been doing this for so long, we've got footage of everything,” Berger says. St. Louis Magazine caught up with two of them to talk about the stories they’ve told over the years.
On the biggest stories they’ve told on the program:
Kirchherr: One of the things I like doing is history, so I'll give you the example of the smoke problem. St. Louis was a leader in the entire country in dealing with smoke [see Kirchherr's story on Black Tuesday here]. And it's sort of like, OK, interesting story. But what it says is, We can do the same things. This is a city that has been creative. I'm particularly interested in people who stepped out of their comfort zone to help this problem. The underlying message to me is, We can or we should still be doing these things.
Berger: I don't think people realize how much St. Louis has been a leader in areas. Now, our population is falling behind, and there are those serious issues that we have to deal with. But I don't think people realize that there are areas where St. Louis has led change and led innovation.
On how they decide what to cover:
Berger: Part of it is the station itself. We try to create content around certain areas—so we're doing one story on workforce, doing one story on gun violence. We do make that commitment that we're going to have ongoing stories about certain content areas.
Kirchherr: Having the interview segment, though, I think gives us the opportunity to do a good human interest story about gun violence, without addressing the issues, just the human interest story to bring people empathy, sympathy, understanding. And then we can do an interview that dives a little bit into the issues. I think that's one of the advantages. But we always say: “Don't bring me an issue. Bring me a story.” And there's always an issue within that story. Sometimes it's gun violence, sometimes it's mental health. But if it's a good story, that's what people are gonna get. Because they get preached to a lot about what they should care about. As opposed to, “Don't tell them what they should care about, make them care about it.” We've always said that we're really good at raising awareness and understanding. Now, sometimes the question is, then, have we changed behavior?
Berger: We're not comfortable telling people how they should feel about the issue anyway. You share a story, and how they feel about it when it's over is how they feel about it when it's over.
On the people they’d like to interview:
Berger: I would love to sit down right now, because she's getting so big, with Nikki Glaser. Just because she lives here, her lifestyle of traveling. I was wondering, how do you stay awake?
Kirchherr: I did interview Jonathan Franzen. He was in town, and he was doing a reading from his memoir about growing up in Webster Groves. He was a little hesitant about doing it, because he had just gone through the Oprah thing. That would be somebody I would get here.
Living St. Louis airs Mondays at 7 p.m. You can stream episodes here.
