They promise to pull us out and they promise to keep us in until victory. But how realistic are these promises from Obama and McCain, and will voters hold candidates to their word no matter how the situation changes? Shia Levitt interviewed an Iraq veteran and an academic about what it means to keep or break a campaign promise in light of a constantly changing situation on the ground.
In a country that likes to think it celebrates cultural diversity, race and identity continue to be a complex topic. When Barack Obama entered the presidential race, people of mixed race thought they finally had someone to speak for them...or do they? Independent producer Dmae Roberts attempts to decipher the hidden messages in Obama's famous "race" speech in March.
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Shia Levitt is a freelance radio reporter based in Brooklyn, New York. She has reported feature pieces and news spots from Israel, India, Japan, Philippines, Kenya, and the Ivory Coast. Her pieces can be heard on Marketplace, NPR, The World, The California Report, Pacific Time, KQED Radio News, CBS Radio's The Osgood File, and numerous other outlets. Shia is a graduate of Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs. When she's not producing radio, Shia also works as a photographer and television producer.
Dmae Roberts is a two-time Peabody award-winning independent radio artist and writer who has written and produced more than 400 audio art pieces and documentaries for NPR and PRI programs. Her work is often autobiographical or about cross-cultural peoples and is informed by her biracial identity. Her Peabody award-winning documentary "Mei Mei, a Daughter's Song" is a harrowing account of her mother's childhood in Taiwan during WWII. Her most recent project has been Crossing East, the first Asian American history series on public radio which just garnered a Peabody award. The eight-hour series took three years to produce and ran on more than 230 stations around the country.
This free podcast is from our '08 Conversations series.
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