The UW’s Radio Masterpiece

The University of Wisconsin was among the pioneers of public broadcasting in the early 1900s, and today’s Wisconsin Public Radio is headquartered in Vilas Hall as a vital part of the UW’s educational mission. For 35 years, beginning in 1990, To the Best of Our Knowledge was its masterpiece.

The nationally syndicated, Peabody Award-winning talk program aired its last episode in fall 2025, but it will not be forgotten — ever. The show’s 2,000-plus episodes have been preserved in the American Archive for Public Broadcasting, a project of the Library of Congress. Fans like me always considered To the Best of Our Knowledge an American treasure, and now it’s official.

The show was an expression of its cocreators’ bottomless curiosity. Steve Paulson MA’83 and Anne Strainchamps were interested in, literally, everything, and they designed To the Best of Our Knowledge to inform and transform their listeners. Each hour-long episode was crafted around an intriguing theme, explored with multiple interviewees and storytelling techniques. Evocative audio snippets and music set the mood for an intellectual and emotional journey.

To the Best of Our Knowledge took the audience’s intelligence as a given, a mark of respect in an age of rampant dumbing-down. It gloried in the world’s great authors, per the commonly used acronym of the show’s name: TTBOOK. Paulson, Strainchamps, and their fellow interviewers were free to explore their personal interests in science, technology, philosophy, history, psychology, spirituality, politics, food, economics, sports, health, and the arts. And their passions became our passions.

Among their hundreds of internationally prominent guests, they spoke to primatologist Jane Goodall about her “mystical experience” with a favorite chimpanzee and to novelist Toni Morrison about “the tiny thoughts that skitter across the imagination.” They put together deep-dive series on the latest psychedelics research and the mind-blowing properties of time. In the best tradition of the Wisconsin Idea, they also featured UW faculty, beaming Madison expertise to the borders of the state and beyond.

Over 35 years, did IQs gradually tick up in the 200 markets where To the Best of Our Knowledge aired? I wouldn’t be surprised.

That’s not to say the show felt like homework. It was always full of laughs and surprises. As it grappled with cosmic questions and eternal mysteries, it also inspired a sense of wonder.

To the Best of Our Knowledge had its peers in the public radio pantheon, such as Fresh Air and This American Life. But it has never — to the best of my knowledge — been surpassed.