Zachary Barr
Audio Producer
Zachary Barr learned radio at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies in Portland, Maine. After finishing the semester-long workshop at Salt, he moved to New York City and interned at Dave Isay's Sound Portraits Productions. Isay started StoryCorps in 2003; before that, he made beautiful audio stories for broadcast on NPR. While living in New York, Barr worked on a project about families of American soldiers killed in Iraq. Some of these interviews turned into "Never Coming Home" on MediaStorm.
After three years at Sound Portraits / StoryCorps, he moved to Denver where he is a reporter and show producer at Colorado Public Radio. Barr's work has been on NPR, Slate, The New York Times, Living On Earth, Marketplace, and other outlets.
Zachary participated in the June 2009 MediaStorm Storytelling Workshop. He had the following to say about his experience:
I work in radio but knew next to nothing about photography and video. No more! The MediaStorm workshop taught me how to take good pictures, and more importantly how to put it all together into one story. It was a chance to do the kind of work we so often wish we were doing: working without distractions, collaboratively with super talented people, all the while guided by dedicated, talented teachers.
One evening, David Sheets read a story about a new basketball arena proposed for his neighborhood. Then he realized the plans were drawn right over his house. Hold Out is the story of a few neighbors who haven't been very easily dislodged.
For each of the more than four thousand U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq, there is an American family undone by grief. "Never Coming Home" takes us inside these families, to meet the people and sift through the emotions that are left behind.