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Some episodes of “The Daily” come together over weeks. In the case of Monday’s episode, it took a weekend. Responding to the rapid fall of Afghanistan’s government to the Taliban, the podcast featured the visceral reactions of one resident of Kabul as she was witnessing the collapse of the country around her, day by day. (She was referred to only as the initial R., because she feared retaliation by the Taliban.) To shed light on the making of this episode — and the many choices and areas of expertise that combine to shape one show — three staff members talked about their roles: Lynsea Garrison, one of the producers; Larissa Anderson, an editor; and Chris Wood, a sound engineer who works in London. Their responses have been edited.
Lynsea Garrison For several weeks, a team of producers had been looking for voices of people trying to leave Afghanistan — from former military interpreters, to people rushing to apply for a priority visa, to others who aren’t eligible for those visas.
I asked Fatima Faizi, one of our reporters in Kabul, if she knew anyone we should talk with. She mentioned R. a couple of weeks ago. I talked with R. over the phone for an hour or so, to learn more about her background. We were supposed to talk again in a longer conversation, but then the situation there really started to deteriorate. I realized that she would have zero time to talk in a recorded interview, so I sent her a voice memo just suggesting that this could be a way for us to talk and document her experience.
It was a pretty spontaneous idea, and she agreed by sending me a voice memo back, and then we continued the conversation, with her documenting what she was experiencing on the ground in a very fast-moving situation.
I wasn’t in constant communication with other producers about this until Sunday, when we all listened to the voice memos together and thought they were powerful enough to sustain an episode. For me, listening to each voice memo just conveyed how urgent this situation was. And, when she messaged me about Mazar-i-Sharif and Jalalabad falling, I was at a loss for words, just at her pain, desperation and her anger at feeling betrayed by the world. I knew after those memos that she had given us something special.
As we were finishing the episode in the early hours of Monday morning, after the Taliban had taken the capital, R. was still sending me voice memos, so, at the very end, we added her most recent updates to keep her experience as fresh as possible.
There were many other people who also shared their updates with me over the weekend. All were powerful voices of people who were desperate and fearful for their own reasons. I hoped that in leaning into one voice we could convey a sense of the dire situation for so many others. But I’m grateful for all of the Afghans who talked to us — and who are continuing to talk to us. They are vital witnesses of history whose voices Americans need to hear.
Larissa Anderson As an editor for NYT Audio, I work with producers and reporters to shape stories. For us, it all comes down to tape — we look for tape to be the muscle of our stories, so we are constantly asking what story the tape can tell. And so, in audio, editing can mean generating ideas with my colleagues, thinking through how a story might sound, pondering the big questions at play and considering what’s at stake and what may be missing from the story.
Once we’re assembling an episode, editing includes thinking about the sequencing of ideas, the emotional information in the tape, the pacing, the music and whether all those things all add up to a new thought, a new understanding, an experience.
In the case of “The Fall of Afghanistan,” this process started for me on Sunday morning. We had an episode on deck that was pretty far along in production that had nothing to do with Afghanistan. But as the news of the weekend unfolded, it became quite clear that we needed to pivot and make a new show for Monday.
Taliban Takeover in Afghanistan ？
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At 9 a.m. Sunday, a team gathered to talk about what reporting we had at that moment, what kind of story the moment demanded and what we could put together on our deadline. Lynsea, who had been reaching out to sources in Afghanistan for a while, said that she had been trading voice memos with a source all weekend, as the story unfolded. After listening to the tape, we all felt like this was exactly the voice we wanted to hear Monday.
Once we knew that we had powerful tape, we wanted to preserve what was so powerful about it: that we were moving through time with the source; getting her raw emotional response to what was happening, as it was happening.
But the tape was missing some things — in particular, what specific news she was reacting to. And given that we wanted this story to unfold as a series of voice memos between Lynsea and the source, we couldn’t rely on a narrator or host. Instead, we used news coverage from the weekend between the voice memos to help move the listener through time and mark the critical inflection points that came up in the voice memos.
Beyond all of these considerations, we also strive to use the tools of our medium to help create an experience, so we pay close attention to tiny details — down to the tenths of seconds — where music helps bridge two thoughts together, where pacing can help an idea to sink in, where a breath can convey emotion. These details take time to hear and process and rework, and we have to listen to every draft in real time. And with each change, we listen to the draft — in real time — all over again.
Understand the Taliban Takeover in Afghanistan Card 1 of 5 Who are the Taliban? The Taliban arose in 1994 amid the turmoil that came after the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan in 1989. They used brutal public punishments, including floggings, amputations and mass executions, to enforce their rules. Here’s more on their origin story and their record as rulers.
Who are the Taliban leaders? These are the top leaders of the Taliban, men who have spent years on the run, in hiding, in jail and dodging American drones. They are emerging now from obscurity, but little is known about them or how they plan to govern.
How did the Taliban gain control? See how the Taliban took control in Afghanistan and erased 20 years of defense in a few months.
What happens to the women of Afghanistan? The last time the Taliban were in power, they barred women and girls from taking most jobs or going to school. Afghan women have made many gains since the Taliban were toppled, but now they fear that ground may be lost as the militants retake power.
What does their victory mean for other terrorist groups? The United States invaded Afghanistan 20 years ago in response to terrorism, and many worry that Al Qaeda and other radical groups will again find safe haven there.
This is not the kind of story you can pull off in a day. It took a whole team of people reaching out to sources, recording their conversations and staying on top of the news. And because of their hard work, we were able to bring to life a deeply intimate portrait of a historic moment. I finished my final listen of the episode at 3 a.m. and handed it off to our engineer to mix and prepare for publishing.
Chris Wood As an audio engineer, I love the craft of taking something that might be a little rough around the edges and chiseling it down into something, not necessarily smooth, but something where the finish is intentional and has its own character. In this way, sound engineering feels quite tangible, something like woodwork.
My first job is to bring all the content in the show into a nice volume balance. The music shouldn’t be overpowering, and the listener shouldn’t notice any jumps in volume between, for example, newsreel and our guests. After that, much of the work is repair. The engineering team has a suite of software that allows us to remove unwanted background noise, stray car honks, dogs or lawn mowers on our guests’ home recordings.
Then, the job is really to tweak the way voices sound. For example, I might bring a certain set of frequencies in a guest’s voice higher in the mix (relative to other frequencies and sound sources) to make it sound brighter, closer or richer.
Thanks to the efforts of Lynsea, another producer, Annie Brown, and Larissa, the schedule for Monday’s episode wasn’t quite as tight as one might expect. Annie and Lynsea handed off to me at 2:50 a.m. Eastern time, about when I typically start work in London, while Larissa worked through the script, highlighting a few cuts and an update to Michael’s “back-announce,” or setup.
One thing that was unusual about the show was a production decision to keep some of the rough quality of the voice memo tape. I describe the engineering process as making the show sound as good as it can. Usually, this means cleaning up rougher tape to make it, in the first instance, more clearly audible, but also bring it closer to studio quality. Here, the rough and ready nature of the tape (voice memos recorded around Kabul as the Taliban approached) really illustrates our source’s journey and her struggle. The texture provided by the rawness of this audio adds to the sense of place and drama of the events.
It’s really a testament to the whole episode team that this show came together our usual three hours ahead of publication. In our handover, it was described as both a marathon and a sprint.