StoryCorps has released interviews that memorialize the anniversaries of certain major events in history. Despite the fact that I am someone who consumes historical content in the same way that some people breathe air, I have never taken an interest in the Watergate Scandal. But I was immediately interested in the interview with Alexander Butterfield, and this interview has led me down the rabbit hole of political conspiracy. Disregarding my personal interest, I thought it would be interesting for my January post to focus on interviews from two very different historical events, one in the fairly distant (at least to me) past and one that occurred within my lifetime. These interviews were conducted by two completely different teams but mixed by the same individual.
The interview: 50 Years After Watergate, The White House Staffer Who “Kept His Integrity Intact” is from 2016 and has interesting formatting; because it could have easily been an interview between the person recording and Mr. Butterfield, but instead framed the interview as a conversation between Alexander Butterfield and his friend Tom Johnson, with Johnson asking the questions. Doing this made the interview feel more natural in comparison to the historically loaded introduction to the audio which gives the listener context for who Mr. Butterfield is and what he did that was significant. One of the things that is unique about this interview is that audio from the original C-Span senate hearings is spliced into the interview, something that is not as common with StoryCorps interviews. As someone who was not alive from the original event and had never heard the audio from the original hearings, I thought hearing that audio following the narration was intriguing.
The second interview I chose, covering an event much more recent was – 10 Years After Sandy Hook: Remembering Jesse Lewis. I remember the Sandy Hook shooting, I was 11 years old. The difference in the opening music caught my attention, the Watergate Interview opened with almost jazzy music while the interview with the family of Jesse Lewis opened with far softer more poignant music which was fitting. There is also a difference between the interview formatting, with the repartee being with the interviewer despite there being two interviewees and all of the interviewers’ audio being edited out. The decision to have closing audio, following the interview, detailing what Jesse’s family has done to honor him in the wake of his death felt like a complementary bookend to the context provided in the intro, like closure. On another note, the editing and audio quality of the two videos are remarkably similar, despite one being recorded in 2016 and the other in 2022.