Give Now  »

The Ernie Pyle Experiment! was created from the archives of the Ernie Pyle collection at the Lilly Library of Indiana University. It is a thirteen-episode podcast chronicling Ernie Pyle’s pre-war work as a travelling columnist for the Scripps-Howard Newspaper syndicate.

Ernie and his wife, Jerry, travelled America from 1935-1942, in quest of interesting stories for his column, and its never-ending deadline. The Ernie Pyle Experiment! explores how it was done. Each episode, through fact and fiction, examines the circumstances surrounding an actual Ernie Pyle column from this pre-WWII era—the body of which is made up from ‘recently discovered’ wire-recordings that give us a view into their everyday lives on the road, and what led to the creation of the column. It culminates in a reading of Pyle’s actual column in question at the end of each installment.

For more on the life of Ernie Pyle, check out
WTIU's documentary Ernie Pyle: Life In The Trenches.

π