This is Boston Calling

For the past 16 years, The World (“a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH in Boston…” as we say day in and day out on public radio) has been both my journalistic training ground and, in many ways, my playground. I have cut my radio chops here, and at the same time managed to have a lot of fun doing it. And through the years, I’ve learned that while there are many unique aspects to this program, one has always stood out — our relationship with the BBC World Service.

Just about anywhere I’ve gone in pursuit of a story for The World, the mere mention of our show’s connection with Auntie Beeb, as she is affectionately known to some, carries cachet and open doors. And it has always been an incredibly fulfilling experience being able to use the resources of the BBC to help bring international news alive, to make it relevant and interesting for an American audience.

But at the same time, our “special relationship” with the BBC World Service has always been strange in one very important respect. We are one of the few programs that is co-produced by the World Service, but that doesn’t actually air anywhere on it.

I have often wondered if it has something to do with all that tea we dumped into Boston Harbor all those years ago. Americans, unlike others, tend to have very short memories. Sorry about that.

We also have American accents. Sorry about that, too.

Anyway, it’s now more accurate to say that we used to not be on the World Service.

This weekend sees the launch of Boston Calling, a new weekly program we are putting together for the BBC right out of our studios here in Beantown. It gives me great joy to think that The World’s best stories and interviews will now find audiences across Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America, not to mention online.

By the way, here are the broadcast times, frequencies and Internet streams.

That’s potentially millions of new listeners for us. It’s humbling, exciting, and more than a tad scary.

But Boston Calling is more than just a “Best-of-The-World” for the World Service. What we are trying to do is use our stories to give a global audience a better idea of how America sees and interacts with the world. It’s a different, but no less important or powerful lens. I hope that the show can ultimately help shed some much-needed light on the weird and wonderful, the strange and sometimes scary country I call home.

A quick note on the title of the program. As much as I want it to be a nod to the massively awesome album by The Clash, “London Calling,” I have been told that’s not the case. Rather, it refers back to the old station identification that World Service radio used back in the day: “This is London Calling.”

Of course, the album is itself a nod to that old phrase as well. Close enough, I say. The aging punk in me will make do with that.

Anyway. I am honored to have served as the Launch Producer for Boston Calling, and I wish it well as it begins what I hope will be a long run on the World Service. In honor of the launch, I’ll skip the coffee and have a nice cup of tea. English Breakfast, of course. Hot, not iced.