Media in Minutes

Sarah Bahr: New York Times Culture Reporter

• Angela Tuell • Season 1 • Episode 5

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On this episode of Media in Minutes, we talk with New York Times Culture Reporter, Sarah Bahr. She shares some of the most memorable celebrities she's interviewed, what story didn't quite go as planned and about the time she saw 30 live New York City theatre shows in just 10 weeks! Sarah also gives us her recommendations on music, theatre and art. 

Check out Sarah's article on the Westchester Broadway Theater.

Read her article on the mansion in Chicago for the express desk at the New York Times.

Check out Sarah's article about artwork in Indianapolis during March Madness. 

If you want to learn more about Gang Gang, visit https://ganggangculture.com. 

To learn more about Sarah's recommendation, All Creatures Great and Small, here’s the link: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/shows/all-creatures-great-and-small/# 

Angela Tuell:

Welcome to Media in Minutes. This is your host Angela Tuell. This podcast features in-depth interviews with those who report on the world around us. They share everything from their favorite stories, to what happened behind the lens and give us a glimpse into their world. From our studio here at Communications Redefined, this is Media in Minutes. Today, I'm thrilled to welcome Sarah Bahr. Sarah is a cultural reporter for The New York Times currently based in Indiana because of the pandemic. Since she began there a little over nine months ago, she has officially contributed more than 100,000 words to the newspaper. Prior to this, she worked as an arts reporter and digital producer for the Indianapolis Star and writer for Indy Monthly. She's also written for USA Today and Forbes. Sarah has three bachelor degrees in English, Spanish, and journalism, as well as a Master's. And, I should mention, only graduated from undergrad three years ago. Welcome, Sarah, thank you for being with us today.

Sarah Bahr:

Thanks so much for asking me.

Angela Tuell:

So we'll start with I know culture reporter for The New York Times has always been your dream job. And you had that goal of getting there in about 15 years after you graduated. Instead, it only took a few. How did you manage that?

Sarah Bahr:

Well, you know, I'm not quite there yet. I'm a culture reporting fellow so I'm at the Times through the end of May. But as far as like how I managed it, so I'll just take you back to the beginning of my time with New York Times. So I applied to the Dow Jones News Fund Multiplatform Editing Internship program during my first year of graduate school at IUPUI which would have been in 2018. And part of that is that you take a copy editing test. And then if you're selected, you're placed at news organizations around the country. And one of the possibilities that I learned is the New York Times, because the director of the program called to ask me how I felt about working there. And I was like,"What kind of question is that? Of course, I want to go to the New York Times." So I interned on the flex desk in summer 2019, which was basically editing stories from across the newsroom. From sports, to politics, to debate coverage, to breaking news to newsletters, fun features, some of everything. But my true passion is arts and culture reporting. And the Times recently established a year long fellowship program around, I think, it's like 30 fellows a year. And one of those positions is an arts reporter. So I applied for that in my second year of grad school. And I was beyond thrilled when I found out that I get to spend an entire year you know, reporting on Broadway and New York theater and art, dance, music, TV, film, then as you know that the pandemic.

Angela Tuell:

What timing, right?

Sarah Bahr:

Yeah, but you know what, well, sometimes organizations like canceled their internships or get like called off summer stuff. I'm so glad the New York Times didn't. And even though there's like no live entertainment right now, there's still plenty of news to cover in the cultural world. So I've been busy, and it's a truly rewarding experience.

Angela Tuell:

Oh, that's great. And while you were an intern there, I saw that you saw 30 Theater shows in 10 weeks. So you have to tell us what were some of the favorites and not so favorites?

Sarah Bahr:

Yeah, that was a big part of my pitch to the New York Times as to why they should take me back because I was like, I'm ready to do this for an entire year. So yeah, I wrote a piece for the section at the end of my internship about seeing 30 shows in 10 weeks on a string budget. Lots of waking up early after working nights. Do you know stakeout rush tickets, entering and losing lots of lotteries. I didn't win the Hamilton lottery the entire summer. But first shows my absolute favorite. There's no question. It was the Lincoln Center production of My Fair Lady that stared Laura Benanti. Which - I would have seen that several more times - if I hadn't waited until the very last week to go. Dear Evan Hansen for sure. I won the lottery for that one and got to sit front row and got to see Andrew Barth Feldman give this really amazing performance of Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune with Michael Shannon and Audra McDonald, which is actually one of two or three shows that I've seen that are currently in consideration for this year's, I guess it's this year's, Tony Awards that may or may not happen. But it's crazy to think that I've seen some of the shows that you know, are up for consideration, considering it's been almost two years now since I've lived in New York.

Angela Tuell:

Yeah. What about, say - can you say some of your not favorites? Or would you rather not mentioned that?

Sarah Bahr:

Um, the one that comes to mind - I mean, it's Broadway, so most of it is pretty,

Angela Tuell:

They're all great, right?

Sarah Bahr:

But my least favorite would have to be the first one that I actually saw, which was Be More Chill. And I had really high expectations for that musical based on the soundtrack. And I loved Michael in the bathroom. Just seeing the actual story after listening to the soundtrack just didn't live up to my expectations. And I was like, I thought there was gonna be more here. So, you know, that was the first show I saw and it was kind of all. It all was it got better from there.

Angela Tuell:

It got better. Good. That's good. Yeah, you don't want it the other way around, right? So for those who don't know, define for us all what culture covers.

Sarah Bahr:

Basically everything in the arts world except books. I've considered putting that in my Twitter bio, just considering all the books pitches I get. Like, I don't cover books. But I do cover breaking news and features in theater, art, dance, design, music, pop culture, TV, and film. I think that's everything. There might be some other disciplines. But those are like the main ones.

Angela Tuell:

That's broad. You have to know a lot about a lot of areas.

Sarah Bahr:

Yeah, definitely. I mean, it gets easier, too, after having been here. Like when I first got here, it was a steep learning curve of just having to be conscious of what's happening in all these worlds, but it definitely gets easier having spent a longer time.

Angela Tuell:

Yeah. You've interviewed Oscar nominees, celebrities, musicians, Broadway stars. Who are some of the most memorable to you?

Sarah Bahr:

Um, so one really cool moment this fall was I was doing Tony Awards nominations interviews, and I got to talk to Jake Gyllenhaal, who told me I was low key killing it.

Angela Tuell:

Wow, what a compliment.

Sarah Bahr:

So that - that was really cool.

Angela Tuell:

If you ever - does it get better from there? I don't know.

Sarah Bahr:

I mean, that was I did get to talk to Anthony Fauci, which was really cool, because I mean, like, I got to talk to him about like theatres reopening. But that's like not something that you would think you would get to do as an arts reporter so that was really cool. I mean, he answered the phone. He's like, "Hi, this is Tony." I'm like, "Tony who."

Angela Tuell:

He calls you? Directly?

Sarah Bahr:

Yeah, not answered one. But yeah, he called me. And I wasn't like expecting it. Because I was just expecting to get like a statement from like a spokesperson or something. Yeah, it was me that picked up. He was like, "Hi, this is Tony." I was like, "Fauci?" It was great.

Angela Tuell:

You were caught off guard, right?

Sarah Bahr:

Who else I talked to? Oh, Billy Eilish, Kelly Marie Tran. Matthew Lewis is another memorable, memorable one. That was actually Christmas Eve was I interviewed him from his parents study in the UK because he was home for the holidays. And that was a Zoom interview. So he'd overlooked the fact that his mom had basically made the room into a shrine to him, like with all his movie posters on the wall. It was just something where it's like, he was so used to it that he didn't think about it. And I was like, "Hey, your face is all over the walls there." He was like, "Oh." It was great.

Angela Tuell:

That is really funny. I've seen some days where you've written 3500 words and six stories in one day.

Sarah Bahr:

Yes, that was Monday. But there was also a lot of that was the Oscars. So kinda like I mentioned before, the nice thing is like, once I kind of do the background research for an award show, or kind of like, have the knowledge of like, what the storylines are, what's been nominated, I can pretty quickly bang out other stories about that same thing. She gets it in writing, like six different stor es about different topics. I ean, not all of them were Oscar stories, there was some other nes too. But it just it gets a l t easier once you spent like, n w almost nine months reporti g on the world of film to just know, or have a better grasp f things than I would if I was just coming in as som one from another desk. Lik, "Oh, the Oscars! What, what's oing

Angela Tuell:

Right, right. You're prepared. What have been some of your all time favorite stories?

Sarah Bahr:

Oh, well, you know, I love any chance I get to get Indianapolis into the New York Times. So this week, I just did a story on all that public art in Indianapolis. That's March Madness. And then I'll have another one that's publishing either later today or tomorrow about another March Madness related storyline. So that's been really exciting. Um, but as far as like, all time favorites. Well, I did one this fall that was really cool. It was another Indiana story about the Bob Ross experience that was opening in Muncie.

Angela Tuell:

Yes. I saw that.

Sarah Bahr:

Yeah, it was at the home where he filmed the show. So um, that was one of like, three or four in person reporting things I've gotten to do since March.

Angela Tuell:

How sad.

Sarah Bahr:

I mean, it wasn't it was a great day. There was like a costume contest with Bob Ross bobblehead prizes. There was a big paint out on the lawn. Like it was just this fabulous experience. I'm so happy that I had the chance to do that.

Angela Tuell:

What about some of your worst, like difficult interview? You don't have to name names the story that didn't go as planned?

Sarah Bahr:

Let's see...one that comes to mind right away is there was one I think the prize for my most sordid reporting experience recently has to go to a feature I did for The New York Times this fall. And it was about the Westchester Broadway Theater that was closing - or that closed - in November. Okay. It was one of the last professional dinner theaters in the country. And it had been home to like a number of Broadway actors over the years from Will Swenson to Faith Prince. And so basically, I set out to do this, you know, do a history of the place, contextualize the loss. It's like the death of one of the last dinner theaters in America. And everything was going well. You know, I'd reached out to the theaters PR person. She passed my information on to the owners who started the theater, I think it was 46 years ago. But then I didn't get a call from them. And I was like, okay, what's up with this? And they kind of had, you know, dropped off the face of the earth. And then I heard from the PR person who I mean, I might add, she was doing this like as a volunteer, because obviously, none of the former employees were being paid now that the theater was shutdown. So it turns out that the owners who are both like 80, or almost 80, were just kind of too sad and decided they didn't want to talk about it. I was like, what is what is going on? Like, is there something like shady going on here? But it was just like that they were really heartbroken and didn't want to talk about it. I was like, okay, like, I totally understand, like, you've invested your life in this. But also, like, there goes my story. And it's hard to give a comprehensive history of the place when you know, the people who run it, from the founding to the President, like really can't be a source for that.

Angela Tuell:

Right. So you didn't get to write it?

Sarah Bahr:

Oh, I did get to write it. So I did a ______ arou d on that. And basically, I ta ked to lots of other people. I was tracking them, like fo mer employees, people who work here, not just at the current moment, but in the past. And I dug into these old clippings abo t the theater. And basically, mean, I think it turned out w ll, I just had to, whereas I could have had like one source for the information befo e I had to get it from a l t of different places of peo le who had all played various ro es. So it took like a week long r than that be kind of inventi e on sourcing. But that was

Angela Tuell:

Yeah. And it sounds like that when almost didn't happen. Do you have any that didn't make it to print that you wanted to tell?

Sarah Bahr:

I mean, one thing I would say is that any editor that's worked with me will tell you, I always have lots of ideas. So if something doesn't make it, it generally goes back on my idea list for future use. Unless there's like something time sensitive. One story that I really wish had run, but that the pandemic killed, wasn't even like a really long thing. It was this, like 500 word Q&A with Andre De Shields for Indianapolis Monthly, because he had been coming to The Cabaret. And he actually had performed at the Indiana Repertory Theater, like before he hit it big with Hadestown. So I do this interview with him. And I mean, it was like a 500 word thing. But we talked for like 45 minutes. And he was so gracious. And he had these great stories about you know, rehearsing in Central Park, so his neighbors wouldn't call the cops on him about crazy guys screaming in his apartment. The Tony Awards, because he's, he's still you know, the reigning Tony winner, because we haven't had more Tony's right. That's really great conversation. But obviously, he did end up performing at The Cabaret and the May issue of Indianapolis Monthly didn't have, like, a ticket section. So...

Angela Tuell:

Aww. Well, maybe one day, it'll make it in. It won't make it in it.

Sarah Bahr:

Yeah, he'll come back one day. Maybe?

Angela Tuell:

How do you like to find your stories?

Sarah Bahr:

Um, so right now, I have a lot of different note, uh, Twitter lists for different interests, whether it's like arts news, Indy news, New York news. But in the before times, it was really great to just have this network of people in Indianapolis. Like, there are people that I would talk to, and they would have like a boatload of stories anytime that I talked to them just because they were like, super interesting people. And it's great when you can like hit on something in a conversation, whether it's actually talking to someone in person or just like reading a story that someone has written that there's like a really small detail that you're curious about. And you're like, that could be a story. Like just wondering where something came from, or trying to follow up on something that's mentioned in the story. But it's really worth of breaking out in a story in itself. You're hunting like that is really a lot of fun.

Angela Tuell:

So you recently also spent some time on the New York Times Express desk, right, which is the group of reporters and editors who monitor and report on breaking news. How was that?

Sarah Bahr:

That was so much fun. So I worked days for the first week and then nights for the second. And it was an intense first two days because I covered a school shooting in Arkansas. And then one of the worst border crashes in history involving migrants that killed 13 people. So that was intense starting out, but then after that, I mean, one thing about Express is that they do hard news like that. But there's also really fun stuff. Like I did a lot of animal stories, actually. So my favorite, I think, I did on Express is I wrote a feature that I'd coached about this mansion for sale in Chicago that I'd seen a listing for. And it was supposedly built for the woman who scapegoated for starting the Chicago Fire, Kate O'Leary. It turned out not so much. Like it was really an exaggerated listing. And I was like looking at census records and talking to historians, because her son has lived there at one point, but not until after she died. So it hadn't been built for her. But that was like a really fascinating, you know, scavenger hunt through history. And one thing about Express that's nice is like you do a lot of breaking news. And it's very intense, but for like a very short period of time generally. Like these are only like 500 to 800 word stories. So you have time to dive into, like, longer stuff like the cow mansion story, right? Because obviously news doesn't break all the time, you just have to be ready when it does. So it's kind of nice to have that balance going on too.

Angela Tuell:

Yeah. What's, what has surprised you about the New York Times?

Sarah Bahr:

I think it's just been how not like how good everyone is at their jobs, but just how much everyone really cares about the product that we're putting out, like everyone is invested in making sure we choose like just the right word here, or making sure that everything is like an accurate reflection, or the best possible reflection of what we can say about what happened. And everyone is just really attuned to nuance. And like, there's no, there's no question that's too small. Like you can email an editor and be like, oh, there's an extra space in the story or something. Because there's there's a guy on Twitter - it's, I think the handle is like New York Times Typos - but likes flagging everything in stories. Everyone is just super, super committed to putting out the best possible news report. And that's really refreshing.

Angela Tuell:

Yeah. So you're in Indianapolis, not too far from where I am, actually. But you were supposed to move to New York, right for this fellowship. Is that still in the works?

Sarah Bahr:

I mean, I hope so. We'll see where I end up after my fellowship is over, job wise. But I'll at least be making a trip this summer to see they just announced Shakespeare in the Park is coming back. here and other fun things crop up. Because I mean, things are getting better now, like the end is in sight for the pandemic. I mean, I'm looking forward to getting the vaccine.

Angela Tuell:

Yes. There's lots of hope out there now.

Sarah Bahr:

Yeah, I mean, I can't believe it's been almost two years since I was in the New York Times building. I mean, it doesn't feel like that long, but it also does.

Angela Tuell:

Yeah. I have o ask about the bachelor degrees too. So you have three of the. How or why did you decide on

Sarah Bahr:

I kind of got into IUPUI just with English. And then I added Spanish because like, I'd taken enough classes that I was, I was just going to have it be a minor at first. But, like, I tested out of most of the introductory courses, so it was a situation where I was like, I might as well just get a major in this. Um, and then journalism. So that was something that I added my sophomore year, where I really got reporting experience with this online student news outlet, which was the campus since then, and really decided that that was something that I wanted to do in the future. I mean, that was something that I thought coming into college, but I wasn't sure that I needed the degree in it either.

Angela Tuell:

Okay, okay. So you thought that you'd get the degree in English, but still do journalism.

Sarah Bahr:

And then it was kind of a similar situation to Spanish where just the amount of classes, I'd considered doing a minor in that too. But I had a lot of AP credit from high school. So I didn't have to take a lot of the introductory classes, which kind of opened it up for me to take higher level courses in these other disciplines. That made it a situation where it was feasible for me to get a major and not just a minor in these subjects.

Angela Tuell:

Right. Do you have advice for others going into journalism?

Sarah Bahr:

I would just say, ask as many questions as possible about everything. Be as curious as possible, not just about like stories and sources, but also just talking to people at the organizations that you're at, whether you're interning or whether you're starting a new job. Just, like, people are fountains of institutional knowledge, and they've had all these fascinating experiences. And they're just like sitting there. I mean, that they won't like ever volunteer things. But when you start asking people about things, they have fascinating stories. And it's a great experience learning from like, more experienced or older reporters that have really covered all variety of things in the world and have really fascinating insights about just how to do that in the best way possible.

Angela Tuell:

Yeah, it sounds like that's how you've been so successful, too, that you've really taken advantage of that. Before we go, we'd love to hear your insights into some of the best artists, musicians, actors we should be following right now because I'm sure you're following them.

Sarah Bahr:

Yeah. Um, so I'll give some local shout outs first. So I just wrote the Indianapolis March Madness meal story. And I love Joy Hernandez, if you've ever been in Broadripple, or Fountain Square, and you'd like the little astronaut guys, the murals. She oes those. So she did an rtist designed basketbal court for the tournament, an it's Being the Astronaut, whi h is named after the paint r Alan Bean who walked on th moon. And hey, that was reall cool. And then also Gang Gang is a local startup, or an incubator, that's working to levate artists of color, and hey're doing some really coo work in the city. Nationally. I mean, I really got into All reatures Great and Small on BS. So I wrote the Matthew Lewi profile for that. But also the

Angela Tuell:

That sounds great. Well, thank you so much, Sarah. main actor in that is Nicholas R lph. I'm now a big fan of just because I mean, he was great in that series. So if you're loo ing for, you know, wholesome te evision right now, All Creatures Great and Small is abo t a veterinarian's adventures. But it's as exciting as a Mar el movie I really appreciate your time.

Sarah Bahr:

Oh, you're welcome.

Angela Tuell:

You can follow Sarah on Twitter and Instagram at SMBahr14. That's all for this episode of Media in Minutes, a podcast by Communications Redefined. Available anywhere you get your podcasts. You can find more at CommunicationsRedefined.com/podcast. I'm your host, Angela Tuell. Talk to you next time.