Sunday, May 29, 2011

Farewell, Liane Hansen

Liane Hansen hosted her last Weekend Edition Sunday this morning. NPR has a timeline of her twenty-two years with the show.

Liane Hansen is one of my favorite radio people. I especially admire her intelligence and tact as an interviewer. You hear that same intelligence and tact when she ventures an answer in Will Shortz’s Sunday Puzzle segments: she never outdoes the contestant playing by telephone.

I was lucky to talk with Liane on one such telephone back in the 1990s, when I got to play the Sunday Puzzle on the air. As everything was made ready for taping, we talked for a minute or two about what it was like having young children in the house. Liane was reminiscing (I think); my kids were playing downstairs.

[Yes, I still have my Weekend Edition lapel pin.]

*

Three-and-a-half years later: found it.

comments: 6

Elaine said...

The weekend of June 4th one of my 'This Week in the Media' submissions will be on NPR. (Robert Conrad has not yet told me to stop entering my finds. I'm up to 5 CD's now--doing a pretty brisk business, so to speak.)

normann said...

Weekend Edition Sunday is such a civilized radio program, like so much on NPR. No shouting. Easy on my nerves. It's one of the things in the US I miss. I suppose that I can listen to it on the Internet, but because of the time difference, it is in the middle of the afternoon and I am usually doing something else.

I do manage to get my Will Shortz fix from the NYT Crossword Puzzle. Did it this morning before I went to the gym, as a matter of fact.

Daughter Number Three said...

Wow, you got the lapel pin! Somehow I'm not surprised that you made it on the air.

I'll miss Liane, too, and agree with normann that her show has always been a civil place to spend an hour or two.

Michael Leddy said...

Elaine, kudos to you.

Norman, you can listen to Weekend Edition Sunday any time: here.

Daughter Number Three, getting on the air is the luck of the draw. I just went looking for an online photograph of the pin and found none. I’ll have to find mine and put up a photo.

Mundane Jane said...

Oh I really wish you would! I've been trying to catch a glimpse of one since writing about it back in 2010.

http://www.mundanejane.com/2010/02/yenti-of-promotional-giveaways.html

Michael Leddy said...

When I find it, I will — promise. It’s going to take some searching. I know though that it hasn’t just disappeared.