The Oregon primary is over, and Sen. Barack Obama (not surprisingly) won the Democratic race.

For reporters, like myself, it was incredibly stressful. In fact, afterwards I almost had to take a trip to the East Coast to give myself some rest.

The one redeeming thing about the primary season, was the opportunity it provided for me to provide some Oregon coverage to a national audience.

For NPR’s political desk, I covered the Oregon senate race for Morning Edition. And then this week, for the national desk, I got to report on a spate of Oregon political resignations for All Things Considered.

The especially fun part of both of those stories, were they were my first appearance on each show. As a professional aside, each new show a reporter can appear on is looked as an accomplishment.

On a day that the New York Times’ front-paged Jamie Lynn Spears, NPR’s Bryant Park Project (the new test morning show — call it NPR, NOW FOR FOR KIDS!) interviewed Chicago Tribune Africa correspondent Paul Salopek.

Read it, listen to it. He really does a good job of exposing why we ignore heartbreaking, world-affecting stories like the tragedy in Congo. And why we choose to care about some conflicts, instead of others.

Okay, so I’ve been on the air for about four months now, rocking the Oregon airwaves. Also done a bunch of national stuff.

And feel like I am still getting up to working and filing multiple stories a day. Still, I do have some favorites thus far.

Without further ado:

Image:Wired/The Heads of State.

If you aren’t a daily Morning Edition listener, you may not have followed it. But starting on Wednesday a funny little soap opera has been playing: with Steve Inskeep at the center of the drama and a rotating cast of writers and scientists playing the supporting roles.

The whole thing started on Wednesday, when Inskeep interviewed one of my favorite writers, Gregg Easterbrook, about a piece he wrote for Wired Magazine (Issue 15:06) where he calls NASA’s next mission to the moon a plan to “build a Motel 6 on the Moon.“

The following day, in response to Easterbrook’s somewhat-controversial commentary, NPR interviewed NASA Administrator Michael Griffin about the “Motel 6″ claims. But Griffin’s interview became much more controversial itself, and not because of the mission to the Moon. But instead, because of his stated views on climate change. NPR listeners’ heartthrob David Kestenbaum wrapped a quick little report on the comments, including one call for Griffin’s resignation. And now Griffin’s views are also reaching the print media, and Inskeep reported that Griffin’s public response has been to blame NPR for “asking the question” about global warming.

Probably not good press on a day the Bush Administration is trying to look progressive on climate change and global warming, ahead of the G8 summit next week here in Germany.

In early February, I was working on a story for German broadcaster Deutsche Welle, when I met and talked with a unique and funny German music researcher, Albrecht Duemling.

After learning about his past, that included stints in the United States, I worked with NPR on a story about Duemling and his work, rediscovering music from people persecuted by the Nazis.

The story aired on Weekend Edition Sunday, and focuses on Duemling’s Berlin-based musica reanimata.

In an effort to gain support, Duemling decided to branch out and include the better-known works of persecuted musicians who survived in exile. Eric Zeisl, for instance, was an Austrian Jew who fled Nazi rule in 1938. He moved to Hollywood and went on to compose music for many popular films including The Postman Always Rings Twice.

Deumling was recently awarded the European Culture Prize for his work.

KCRW, one of the most unique and trailblazing public radio stations in the country, is heading into fundraising season in January.

Sometimes, it seems like every season is fundraising season for public radio.

And as a listener, as well as an employee, the pleading really does get to me. But it’s a necessary evil. And its hopefully convincing enough to get you off your duff and contribute.

But if you don’t want to sign a check or send any money, another option is to man the phones. As a one-time KCRW phone volunteer, I have to say that not only is it gratifying — but its fun. I do think public radio people share more than just listening habits. There is an NPR personality…and spending a few hours once or twice a year with others can be very fun.

(And, from my experience at KCRW, I have to say that you can eat some amazing food, get some free stuff, and feel like a do-gooder.)

Okay…back to regularly scheduled programming.

TAFTA!?!

The acronym, which stands for Trans-Atlantic Free Trade Agreement, sounds at the very least derivative, and more accurately, dumb.

Nevermind the word games, the idea is gaining ground on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, as an answer to the growing economic strength of China.

Sounds like a perfect story for Marketplace!

So, even though I am in Berlin, over the weekend, I cohosted a public radio program on KPCC in Los Angeles. The program, called Zocalo (”town square” in Spanish), airs on Sunday nights for an hour, and is an arts and culture program specifically geared towards Angelenos.

(The guilty secret of public radio, and broadcast journalism in general, is that things aren’t always live. And that applies in spades to this show. I recorded these interviews (which aired in December) over the summer. But KPCC didn’t have an opening for this show until this week. So I got to hear the program live on KPCC, in the middle of the night, here in Berlin.)

In the episode, titled Life 2.0, features two 20-minute interviews I did with people whose lives are consumed by virtual worlds: Prof. Edward Castronova and Second Life CTO Cory Ondrejka.

The first time I encountered this world was in a story I did for Marketplace, called Coming soon: Virtual debt. And I think both my Marketplace story, and these interviews, are really, seriously interesting — and important to the world we live in now.

So, my first story with the mothership ran last week, on NPR’s Day to Day. It’s about a 15,000 person village in the south of Germany, named Trossingen.

The place is tiny, and isn’t even listed on most maps. But it has an incredibly unique feature — it’s the birthplace of the modern harmonica and at one time 95-percent of the world’s ‘mouth harps’ were made and sold here.

It really was one of my favorite stories to report, considering I got to listen to tons of cool harmonica music. And its an incredibly gorgeous town to visit!

Just as I finished posting about how public radio (and all content producers, really) need to adapt to the web and really find new ways to use the technology, I listened to an OPB podcast from April Baer, the local Morning Edition host in Portland, Ore. Her Quicktake Northwest podcast is definitely moving in the right direction in terms of making the web and the ‘net a bigger part of the public radio landscape.

(As an aside, a good example of how not to force radio-web integration is the PRI-distributed show Open Source, which is too forced and heavy-handed in its blog segments.)

On Tuesday, Nov. 14, Quicktake Northwest directed listeners to a hilarious video about the current storm hitting Portland. It used the web as a compliment — not a supplement — to its programming. And, hopefully, successfully drove traffic the web without compromising the quality of the podcast.

Here’s that video Quicktake mentioned: