- Jesse Thorn
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Jesse Thorn Born April 24, 1981
San Francisco, California, United StatesShow The Sound of Young America Station(s) Maximum Fun Network Public Radio International Style Interview Country United States Website Official website Jesse Thorn (born April 24, 1981) is an American public radio show host/creator. He is the host and producer of the radio show and podcast The Sound of Young America, which is distributed by Public Radio International to 25 public terrestrial radio stations in 13 states[1] and is also broadcast weekly on XM Radio's "XM Public Radio" channel.[2] He also hosts the podcasts Judge John Hodgman and Jordan, Jesse, Go! and the television program The Grid, which formerly aired on IFC.
Contents
Early life
Thorn grew up in San Francisco, California, where he attended the School of the Arts.[3] He attended University of California, Santa Cruz where he co-founded The Sound of Young America and worked for the campus radio station KZSC.[4] The Sound of Young America began as a college radio variety show featuring Thorn and two other co-hosts, Jordan Morris and Gene O'Neill.[5]
Career
Near the end of 2004 Thorn began to make the show available as a podcast. Thorn and the show were mentioned in The Wall Street Journal, TIME Magazine, and Salon.com,[4][6][7] with Salon.com describing Thorn's interviewing style as combining "the civility and preparedness of [Terry] Gross leavened with the good humor of [Conan] O'Brien." [8] A few months later, Thorn received a call from the director of programming at PRI, who had heard one of the podcasts and expressed interest in distributing the show.[4] In 2006 WNYC-FM, a public radio station in New York City, picked up the show, and PRI decided to distribute it.[3] As of September 2008 the show was carried on 18 public radio stations, in addition to the podcast.[1][3]
In addition, Thorn and Jordan Morris host another podcast, "Jordan, Jesse GO!"[3] Thorn has also produced several other podcasts for MaximumFun.org, including Coyle & Sharpe: The Imposters[citation needed] and The Kasper Hauser Podcast.[9] He is also a part of sketch comedy group Prank The Dean,[10] along with Morris, Lauren Pasternak and Jim Real.[11]
Over time, The Sound of Young America became more focused on interviews. Thorn has interviewed many notable personalities on his show such as Nick Hornby and Nellie McKay.[3] Thorn also interviewed Stephen Colbert as a part of iTunes's Meet the Author series.[4] Thorn has become notably identified with a philosophy he calls "New Sincerity." A USA Weekend article cited the "New Sincerity" segment of the show as a listeners' favorite, and quoted Thorn's explanation of the concept as "a rejection of irony."[12] Thorn has promoted "New Sincerity" on his program, in his blog,[13] and in interviews,[10] [14] [15] [16][17] and was named as a popularizer of "new sincerity" in a scholarly work discussing the similar novaia iskrennost' concept in Russian post-Soviet aesthetic theory.[18]
Personal life
On August 9, 2008, Thorn married Theresa Hossfeld in San Francisco, California.[3]
Footnotes
- ^ a b List of stations, at Sound of Young America website.
- ^ List of programs at XM Public Radio website.
- ^ a b c d e f Vows: Theresa Hossfeld and Jesse Thorn, New York Times, September 6, 2008.
- ^ a b c d Rappaport, Scott (April 2, 2008). "Maximum Fun: Alum Jesse Thorn woos young listeners with a new brand of radio show". UC Santa Cruz Review (Santa Cruz, California). http://www.ucsc.edu/news_events/text.asp?pid=2073. Retrieved October 23, 2009.
- ^ Jesse Thorn, "My Life As America's Radio Sweetheart", Metro Santa Cruz, August 23–30, 2006.
- ^ Keith Huang, "Blog Watch: "The Sound of Young America", Wall Street Journal, July 24, 2006, copy available here.
- ^ "The Pick of the Podcasts, TIME, May 2, 2006.
- ^ Ira Boudway, "Longer listens: Peter Guralnick, Art Spiegelman and some lost Van Morrison tracks on the 'Sound of Young America'", Salon.com, November 14, 2005.
- ^ "Jesse Thorn Bio" at PRI website.
- ^ a b Ben Kharakh, "Jesse Thorn, America's Radio Sweetheart" in Gothamist, posted November 2, 2006.
- ^ Prank the Dean website.
- ^ Dennis McCafferty, "Top podcast picks: Favorites from experts in their category," USA Weekend, January 14, 2007. (Thorn's program was the in-print "podcast pick" of comedian Patton Oswalt.)
- ^ Jesse Thorn, "A Manifesto for The New Sincerity," February 17, 2006.
- ^ "Interview: Jesse Thorn, Part 1," The Merlin Show, posted June 4, 2007.
- ^ Dan Brodnitz, "An Interview with The Sound of Young America's Jesse Thorn," O'Reilly Digital Media, posted September 15, 2008.
- ^ But see Bill Forman, "Müz: The New Ambiguity," Metro Santa Cruz, March 8–15, 2006 (opining that New Sincerity is "just another ironic hoax").
- ^ Tycho (Jerry Holkins), "The Valley Of The Shadow of Death" at Penny Arcade, March 1, 2010 (accessed March 2, 2010) ("The New Sincerity is simply The Old Irony, with better PR.")
- ^ Alexei Yurchak, "Post-Post-Communist Sincerity: Pioneers, Cosmonauts, and Other Soviet Heroes Born Today," in Thomas Lahusen and Peter H. Solomon, What Is Soviet Now?: Identities, Legacies, Memories (LIT Verlag Berlin-Hamburg-Münster, 2008), ISBN 9783825806408, p.258 n.3, excerpt available at Google Books.(Noting that "the turn to post-postmodern sincerity . . .is associated with the events of 9/11" and "'new sincerity' has been popularized since 9/11 by some youth media (for example, by Jesse Thorn, the host of a popular music program Sound of Young America, on New York's National Public Radio station WNYC).
External links
- A podcast interview with Jesse Thorn
- Carson Cistulli interviews Jesse Thorn
- A podcast interview with Jesse Thorn about his Put This On project
- An interview with Thorn
- Maximumfun.org - website for The Sound of Young America and related projects
- Website for Thorn's sketch comedy group, Prank The Dean
- Website for Jordan, Jesse, Go!
- WNYC's website for The Sound of Young America
Public Radio International Productions Classical 24 · Studio 360 · The Takeaway · To the Point · The World
Distributions Specialty features News: The World: Technology · The World: A World of Words · The World: American Influence · The World: Global Hit · Global Health & Development podcast · Economic Security podcast · Social Entrepreneurship podcast
Arts & Entertainment: Studio 360: Design for the Real World · The World's Geo Quiz · Whad'Ya Know?Personalities Kurt Andersen · Clark Boyd · Steve Curwood · Bob Edwards · Michael Feldman · Ira Glass · Celeste Headlee · John Hockenberry · Mary Kay Magistad · Lisa Mullins · Femi Oke · Warren Olney · Jeb Sharp · Tavis Smiley · Faith Salie · Ray Suarez · Jesse Thorn · Marco Werman · Robin Young
Related articles Categories:- American radio personalities
- People from San Francisco, California
- Public Radio International personalities
- 1981 births
- Living people
- University of California, Santa Cruz alumni
- American podcasters
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