409
June 4, 2010

Held Hostage

A kidnapping victim in Colombia spends his nights listening to a radio station that plays messages from the families of the kidnapped. That and other stories of people held captive—by criminals, by paperwork, and in one man's case, his own body—and the ways they try to cope.
Viviana Duarte, one of many Colombian children whose father was kidnapped by the FARC. He’s been gone since 1998. Photo by Jacob Silberberg.

Prologue

By

Ira Glass
Ira Glass speaks with a man named Daniel Johnson, who is in the K&R business. That's the kidnap and ransom business, where a company helps you negotiate to get back your loved one. Daniel explains some surprising strategies for surviving as a hostage. (6 minutes)
Act One

Captive Audience

By

Jay Allison
Annie Correal

So much kidnapping happens in Colombia that the biggest radio station in the country has a show aimed specifically at an audience of kidnapping victims. Reporter Annie Correal tells the story. Annie originally produced this as a longer story with Jay Allison for the website transom.org. Annie Correal manages Cowbird and is a Senior Producer at Radio Ambulante, a new Spanish-language radio storytelling project. They've just launched their website and are raising money for their first episodes on Kickstarter. (14 minutes)

Song:

“Colombia” by Jan Hammer

Related

If you enjoyed this episode, you may like these
201: Them
Dec. 7, 2001

Act One: My Friend The Extremist

Several years ago, before most of us paid much attention to the name Osama bin Laden, Reporter Jon Ronson spent a year following around a Muslim activist named Omar Bakri, who called himself bin Laden's "man in London." At first Ronson thought Bakri was on the "them" side of "us and them." But then Ronson got to know him, and changed his mind.

Staff Recommendations

View all
218
Aug. 9, 2002

Act V

A group of inmates at a high-security prison stage a production of the last act of Hamlet.

Share

Share