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Ira Glass is among the very best storytellers on radio.  He handles the big questions for society through ordinary people with a good story to tell.
 

Ira Glass is the host and creator of the legendary awardwinning radio program This American Life.

The show premiered on Chicago's public radio station WBEZ in 1995 and is now heard weekly on more than 500 public radio stations all around the US. Most weeks, the podcast of the program is the most popular podcast on the iTunes listing. The show also airs each week on the CBC in Canada and on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's radio network.

Glass began his career as an intern at National Public Radio's network headquarters in Washington, DC in 1978, when he was 19 years old. Over the years, he worked on nearly every NPR network news program and held virtually every production job in NPR's Washington headquarters. He has been a tape cutter, newscast writer, desk assistant, editor, and producer. He has filled in as host of Talk of the Nation and Weekend All Things Considered.

Under Glass's editorial direction, This American Life has won the highest honors for broadcasting and journalistic excellence, including several Peabody and DuPont-Columbia awards. The American Journalism Review declared that the show is "at the vanguard of a journalistic revolution."

A television adaptation of This American Life ran on the Showtime network for two seasons, in 2007 and 2008, winning three Emmy awards, including Outstanding Nonfiction Series. The show has put out its own comic book, three greatest hits compilations, DVDs of live shows and other events, a "radio decoder" toy, temporary tattoos and a paint-by-numbers set. Half a dozen stories are in development to become feature films.