Like Nina, I too am suffering a wicked cold right now and feeling stressed (perhaps not the best time to write a PRX review, huh?), so I was very intrigued by the subject matter of "Needling Nina". The story delivers on some fronts but misses on others.

First - the actual radio story. The production is solid: editing is smooth and the music adds to the experience. Nina has an authentic voice -- she sounds like a "real person", someone I might like to meet at a dinner party. The acupuncturist, though, is hard to understand because of the thick accent. I found myself listening more for the "mood" rather than actually learning anything about acupuncture or eastern medicine. It's hard to do an "experiential" story like this for the radio when so much of the gee whiz is visual. The story does a good job of conveying the scene, but I'm glad to see there's a companion video (though that won't help radio listeners not near a computer).

The bigger question is how stations would use this story. It's billed as a potential "drop-in" for national or local newsmagazines, but there's no set-up. We don't know who Nina is, why we should care, etc. She's a "personality" just because she's in a radio story... but unless the listeners is used to hearing her very regularly, she's job this lady doing this thing on the radio. The listeners won't feel a connection to her. This is the biggest issue the series will have to tackle -- the packaging of Nina and why we should care what she's doing. But - if the producers can figure that out - they may have a winner.