Dave Barber, long-time host of WYSO's NiteTrane, on Monday nights from 8 to 10 p.m., is also the host of one of our station's newest shows, Think Twice.
Think Twice airs Saturday afternoons at 4 p.m. Listeners can also subscribe to the Think Twice podcast.
Barber spoke with WYSO Weekend host Jerry Kenney about the new show and offered a preview of this week's program.
This story has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Jerry Kenney: You've got a new show on Saturdays called it Think Twice. This program has been running on WYSO since June. Tell us a little bit about it.
Dave Barber: The program really came out of a conversation I had with (WYSO General Manager) Luke Dennis. The idea behind the program was on the Saturday afternoon on WYSO. So if we could create an open space where a number of things could happen, there are individual programs that are made available to WYSO from PRX, NPR, national programs, national conversations that we can run in this hour.
But I think one of the things Luke was very interested in getting were some of the things that were happening locally. The Dayton Metro Library Social Justice Speaker series for one, Kettering Foundation is involved in a number of democracy related programs, the Context Podcast, Kettering Conversations. If we could create a place for more people to hear some of this content that's being created locally. It's an open window for virtually anything, any subject on the national front.
But also we ran Julio Matteo's documentary John Crawford III - A Matter of Impact, which came out of the Eichelberger Center for Community Voices. It's an open window for a Community Voices producer who wanted to do something and long form. It would be there for that, there are also archival ideas that are in the works, but it's basically it's a place where we wouldn't necessarily be hemmed in by a weekly show, where we could do this, and running the national programs kind of gives us the runway to shape the locally done material or build something from the ground up.
Kenney: I think you're well-suited for this. You've been a Community Voices producer for WYSO for a decade now. You've had experience producing Rediscovered Radio segments. So how does that experience relate to how you prepare for this program?
Barber: Well, it's interesting. With Community Voices, you're trained to create very concise, small stories, working closely with an editor. This program, for me, involves doing a lot of listening and then working with big chunks of audio. When you're a community voice producer, one of the frustrations is what you may leave on the floor. In this program, you leave nothing on the floor. So I've certainly put that experience into play here. But it's it's an interesting wrinkle on that.
Kenney: You've got a special program coming up Saturday, Sept. 21. Can you talk about that?
Barber: Sure. We started the show with a program on Freedom Summer where I interviewed Kevin McGruder from Antioch College and WYSO's own Steve Schwerner, and we talked about Freedom Summer. So from time to time, we're going to be able to talk to people about events that have cornerstone connections here. Saturday we have a program planned around film at the beginning of October on the 4th, 5th and 6th, the Yellow Springs Film Festival will be taking place. I had a chance to talk to Eric Mahoney, who is the executive director and the founder of The Yellow Springs Film Festival. We get a complete preview of the Film Festival. I have a chance to speak to Steve Bognar. Beyond being an award winning filmmaker and sitting at the center of the film community here, Steven Bognar continues to be an advocate for the communal experience of watching movies in theater.
Barber: At the Yellow Springs Film Festival, festival goers will have an opportunity to see an important early Julia Reichert film,Growing Up Female, plus the short film Julia's Stepping Stones, and there will also be an award given to an emerging female documentary filmmaker in Julia's name. So I have a chance to speak to Steve about Julia, about the two films. Also about the short film that he created for The Little Art, which has been a huge grant that they've gotten. And also one of the things that's part of the story is eight years ago I did a story on how streaming was affecting the theater and the Neon Movies, and it's eight years later it's post-COVID, and that world has changed a bit. And I was able to talk to Kayla Wyatt from the Little Art Theater, Jonathan McNeil from the Neon, Steve Bognar and Eric. They all had insights into what's changed with art house cinema. So there's a lot of good audio. I'm still editing parts of that, but it'll be time to run a couple of weeks before Eric's festival and throw a light on all of that.
Kenney: It'll be a great program and I encourage people to check out Think Twice. It airs Saturday afternoons on WYSO at 4 pm. Dave, thanks so much for filling us in on the program and good luck.
Barber: Thanks a lot, Jerry.
