In response to Catherine’s comment:

One easy way to use the NPR API Query Generator is to:

Build the Query for NPR Stories
1. Check Fields> Output Format > HTML Widget (this will allow you to see the results).

2. Under the tab: Control, try some Search Terms, Dates, Number of Results, and any other tabs, Topics, Series, Fields, etc, to get the content you want to display.

3. Click the button: Create API Call button (the query url will appear in the Generated API Call box.

4. Now click the button: Run API Call. The results will show in the Output box, as they would on a webpage (if you have HTML Widget) checked.

5. Alter the Control> Search Terms, Dates, etc., and repeat the Create API Call and Run API Call, until you get the results you want displaying in the Output.

Get the API Call (Query URL) for NPR Stories
6. Now check Fields> Output Format > Javascript Widget.

7. Click the button: Create API button.

8. Copy the query URL from that appears in the API Call box.

Insert the NPR Stories Into Your Web Page/Post
9, Paste your query URL, and your API Key, into this Javascript code:
<script type="text/javascript" src="PasteYourQueryURLHere"></script>

10. Paste the above js code, with your query URL into your web-page or blog-post.

Geo Beach, host of History Channel’s “Tougher in Alaska,” and indie radio producer, is guest on tonite’s Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

There were some requests on the AIR Daily maillist for a quick&dirty how-to on using NPR’s new API. Your most common use will probably be embedding a single story into your web page or blog post.

Find the story at NPR.org, then grab the url, e.g. this recent HV piece:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91881310

Copy the above storyID at the end of the url, and paste it into the JavaScript code below where it sez “PasteStoryIDHere”; also paste in your NPR API Key at “PasteYourAPIKeyHere” (instructions below on how to get one):

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://api.npr.org/query?id=PasteStoryIDHere,&fields=title,teaser,storyDate,show,audio&output=JS&apiKey=PasteYourAPIKeyHere"></script>

Now paste all the above into your page/post, and it’ll display like this:

To display more than one story, list each ID, separated by a comma; e.g., the ID’s of these recent Jack Chance encounters:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89723386
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88961745

used in this code:
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://api.npr.org/query?id=89723386,88961745&fields=title,teaser,storyDate,show,audio&output=JS&apiKey=PasteYourAPIKeyHere"></script>

look like this:

Notice I’ve specified the fields=title,teaser,storyDate,show,audio. Those fields determine what’ll show on the page: you can remove some, or add others. The list of what’s possible is under the FIELDS tab of NPR’s Query Generator.

While there, check out the many other possibilities for interacting with NPR database of stories, audio, text, and photos. You can specify search terms, NPR shows, topics, and a host of other criteria for creating custom lists. And you can see how the lists will display. If there’s demand I’ll add another how-to sometime on using the Query Generator.

To get an NPR API Key, start here: http://www.npr.org/api/index

Click the upper-left Register link to start your account. Or, if you subscribe to an NPR newsletter, you already have an account: click instead the upper-left Login link and enter your NPR subscription email and password.

Once in, click the Manage link in the upper-left. Copy it. (You can get it again anytime by returning to your account settings, and using the Open API top tab.)

Hearing Voices from NPR®:
021 Tony Schwartz— Documenting Life in Sound
Host— Barrett Golding & Kitchen Sisters of Hearing Voices
Airdates— 7/23/2008 - 7/30/2008

Tony Schwartz, media pioneer, audio documentarian, and the most famous radio person you probably never heard of, died June 2008. We hear The Kitchen Sisters’ Lost & Found Sound-portrait, “Tony Schwartz, 30,000 Recordings Later,” and the Tony Schwartz-inspired verite documentary of the town he lived in and loved, “New York City: 24 Hours in Public Places” (thanks to Transom.org).

Audio of program will be posted here 7/30/2008.

The Great and Powerful WNYC begins weekly broadcasts today of our Hearing Voices from NPR series, Sun 7am on 820 AM in NYC. Lots of other stations have added us lately; we now air on 80+ AM/FM channels. Just a few of our other recent adds: Iowa Public Radio (on 3 of their networks), KCPW-Salt Lake City (home of Scott Carrier), New Jersey Public Radio, KSKA-Anchorage (still enjoying thier midnight sun), Northern Public Radio (Northern Illinois University network), , KDVS at UC-Davis (great music station), and KANW-Albuquerque.

HV Stations: list | map

Radio producer Leni Holliman died this week. She a PRX Most Licensed Producer; creater of the popular series Day by Day with Lewis & Clark, and the Arts and Humanities Producer for Yellowstone Public Radio, and just good folk. As she sez: “So I’m this chick who lives up in Montana and makes radio.”

The Micro Fiber Militia blog noted this crocheted-graffiti in honor of Leni outside the Yellowstone Art Museum:

Back from our bike loop around rural MT (Bozeman> Ennis> Dillon> Elkhorn Hot Springs> Butte> Willow Creek> Bozeman). Love riding thru the national parks; the Madison, Wise, Big Hole, and Jefferson Rivers make great travel companions. Got some tape and a few pix, but first gotta share with you this note magic-markered on the Whitehall MT cement picnic table where we lunched:

NPR is already offering a collection of widgets made by themselves and others (using their new API), including this flash-y Reverbiage spinning-globe story-list: