Primarily a journalistic non-fiction program, it has also featured essays, memoirs, field recordings, short fiction, and found footage.

[8] Often This American Life features stories which explore aspects of human nature, such as "Kid Logic", which presented pieces on the reasoning of children.

[11] While Glass admits he wasn't transparent about his plans, in that same article, he explained, "Every week on The Wild Room we came to the show with two independent sensibilities.

[27] The program is shortened slightly for the Canadian broadcast to allow for a five-minute newscast at the top of the hour, although this is partly made up for by the removal of mid-program breaks, most of the production credits (apart from that of Malatia), and underwriting announcements (CBC's radio services being fully commercial-free, except when contractually or legally required).

In January 2012, This American Life presented excerpts from a one-man theater show The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs by Mike Daisey as an exposé of conditions at a Foxconn factory in China.

[29] Airing that day, This American Life devoted the week's show (titled "Retraction") to detailing the inconsistencies in "The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs".

[38] The show offers two, six-month fellowship positions annually for persons who have worked in the field of journalism, but who would like training in how to tell stories in the style of This American Life.

Marc Fisher with American Journalism Review drew attention to how the program's production style elicits "a sense of ease, informality and direct, unfiltered access", and "the effect is liberating".

[50] The winning work was "The Out Crowd", the 688th episode with "revelatory, intimate journalism that illuminates the personal impact of the Trump Administration's 'Remain in Mexico' policy".

[79] The announcement noted that each half-hour episode would "be hosted by Ira Glass and [...] explore a single theme or topic through the unique juxtaposition of first-person storytelling and whimsical narrative.

In 2002 the show signed a six-figure deal with Warner Bros. giving the studio two years of "first-look" rights to its hundreds of past and future stories.

[85] In June 2008, Spike Lee bought the movie rights to Ronald Mallett's memoir, whose story was featured in the episode "My Brilliant Plan".

[86] Potential Warner Bros films from TAL episodes include "Niagara", which explored the town of Niagara Falls, New York, after those who sought to exploit the tourism and hydroelectrical opportunities of the area left; "Wonder Woman" (from the episode "Superpowers"), the story of an adolescent who took steps to become the superhero she dreamed of being, well into adulthood; and "Act V", about the last act of Hamlet as staged by inmates from a maximum security prison as part of Prison Performing Arts Adult Theatre Projects.

Paramount Pictures and Broadway Video are in production on Curly Oxide and Vic Thrill, a film based on the TAL story in the episode "My Experimental Phase".

[90] Glass has stated that the radio show has no financial stake in the film, but noted that he appreciated how well the movie stuck to the original facts.

[88] This American Life's 361st episode's, "Fear of Sleep", section "Stranger in the Night" featured an excerpt from Mike Birbiglia's one-man show, "Sleepwalk with Me".

From 1998 to 2005, the program could be accessed online in two formats: a free RealAudio stream available from the official show website, and a DRM-encrypted download available through Audible.com, which charged $4 per episode.

[citation needed] Aware that more people were listening through headphones and so could hear mistakes more clearly, the production sought to improve the mixing and editing.

Since the move to MP3 files in 2006, the show has relied on an extremely lightweight digital rights management system, based on security through obscurity and legal threats.

On at least three occasions, Internet users have created their own unofficial podcast feeds, deep linking to the MP3 files located on the This American Life webserver.

[106] Stephanie Foo served as project lead, collaborating with developers Courtney Stanton and Darius Kazemi of Feel Train.

"[21] In the book Sound Streams—A Cultural History of Radio-Internet Convergence, author Andrew Bottomley calls the show "the archetype of the modern US feature-documentary mode.

Steph Harmon with The Guardian remarked that the show is "often credited for ushering in not only a public radio revolution, but the rise of storytelling as an industry and podcasting as a form.

The satirical newspaper The Onion published a story on April 20, 2007, entitled "'This American Life' Completes Documentation Of Liberal, Upper-Middle-Class Existence.

"[112] In 2011, comedy writer Julian Joslin (with Michael Grinspan) released a parody of TAL entitled "This American Laugh" on YouTube,[113] wherein a fictional Glass makes a sex tape with Fresh Air's Terry Gross.

[116] In 2013, Stanley Chase III, Mickey Dwyer, Ken Fletcher, and Matt Gifford launched the parody podcast That American Life on iTunes, which is hosted by "Ira Class".

[118][119] In two episodes of season one of Orange Is the New Black, Robert Stanton portrays radio personality Maury Kind, an NPR host of a show called Urban Tales.

In the 2014 film Veronica Mars, the character Stosh "Piz" Piznarski works at This American Life, and Glass and many TAL staffers appear in background roles.

[126] In a season 6 episode of 30 Rock called "St. Patrick's Day," Glass's voice appears on the radio, apparently presenting TAL, with his studio having been overrun by drunken thugs.

[128] Much of the TAL staff made a cameo on the season four opener of the HBO show High Maintenance, in an episode that told the story of a fictional new reporter at the radio program.