Out to Lunch: MPR News host Tom Crann has guided Minnesotans through two decades of headlines

On Minnesota Now, we hear from many different people in Minnesota over the phone and in the studio. But we don’t often meet them in the community, where news and life happens. In our “Out to Lunch” series, MPR News host Nina Moini sits down for a meal with people from Minnesota news and culture to get to know them better.

Tom Crann has been a steady voice and presence as the host of All Things Considered for the last 20 years. Crann announced last month he is leaving MPR News to return to his roots as a classical music host with YourClassical MPR. He joined Moini for lunch to reflect on his career and what’s ahead.

Our lunch guest: Tom Crann, host of All Things Considered

The restaurant: Diane’s Place in northeast Minneapolis

The following has been edited for length and clarity. Use the audio player above for the full conversation.

What drew you to radio and sharing yourself with the public in that way?

As a kid, I loved listening to it so much. I grew up in New Jersey and I would listen to talk shows, I’d listen to disc jockeys and I just loved what they did and how they were talking to me. I thought, “Well, this could be a cool way to make a living. “

I always liked the radio aspect of that better because you couldn’t see them and they were talking directly to you. How many times have we listened to someone on the radio and didn’t know what they looked like? These days it’s different because everything’s now online. But it was Ira Glass, early on in This American Life, who said, “They shouldn’t put our pictures in because it ruins the magic.”

In the last 20 years, you have been on the radio with Minnesota through so many things. What was the first really big news story that you had to guide the audience through?

The 35W bridge collapse in August 2007. We were just wrapping up and it was a little after 6 p.m. There I am with the TV on, as I often have in the studio with the sound off, and I’m like, “What’s that? Where’s that going on?”

It was WCCO-TV and they had live helicopter pictures of this Mississippi River bridge collapse. I didn’t even know where it was. I had to look online and write it down and then go on at the next available break and say, “We’re seeing this. We don’t have any more details.”

Then we just stayed with it until 11 p.m. or midnight. It was the first big chaotic news story that was changing that we had to follow and had to go on the air with very little information.

At what point does Tom the person begin to process something like that?

I don’t have a hard and fast rule on how that happens or when it happens, but it does have to happen. But not that night, because you’re on and your concern is, “Let’s find out what’s going on and get it out to people.”

You do it later. I remember I was up until 2 a.m.

On election night, when you’re on until 11 p.m. or midnight and then I go home and I’m up until 3 a.m. or 4 a.m. You do process it and then you start to think, “Okay, what does this mean?”

I think that was the problem with 2020 and COVID and George Floyd and the uprising and all that. There was no time to process any of it because it was all happening at the same time.

People have said this to you too, right? If they don’t like our current president or they had too much COVID news, they say, “I couldn’t listen, I had to turn it off.” We can’t do that, so it does mean things move on quickly without always processing them. You process them through your life, I guess, as you live.

What are you going to miss about hosting All Things Considered?

I think I will miss working with the team that we have. I’ve been lucky to have excellent teams for 20 years.

I will miss knowing what’s going on and the chance to talk to people. A couple years back, Jane Fonda was coming to town and we had the chance to talk to her. So, I’m on my way into work and I stop at the coffee shop in my neighborhood and they just make conversation. They asked, “Doing anything interesting today?” That day I was like, “Yeah! In half an hour I’m interviewing Jane Fonda.” You don’t get to say that every day, do you?

Someone who used to work at MPR sent me an email this week and they said, “Your heart was in classical music, wasn’t it?” And it always has been, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t into this job and did it with my heart, my brain, my soul, my guts. My sanity, some weeks, right? You have to put it all in.

The Last Bite: What are the ingredients to finding your voice?

I think it’s being honest about who you are and what you can do.

There was a radio coach named David Candow. I speak very highly of him. I loved him, he died too young. Here’s what he said, “Don’t imitate. We all have favorite people in broadcasting, in our work, don’t imitate them. Be the best version of you that you can be on the air.”

And I thought, “Well that’s terrific insight. Don’t imitate. Be who you are.”