If the news of former ABC Sydney radio presenter James Valentine’s death hit you hard, and you’re wondering why, it makes sense to me.

For many listeners, the strange part is not just the grief but having to account for it. He wasn’t your friend. Or was he? He wasn’t someone you’d meet for coffee. And yet it can feel like that kind of relationship. The sense of loss is real.

I’m in that position too. I didn’t know James personally. I knew him the way listeners do, through the radio. I did speak to him once, years ago, when I was a junior broadcaster trying to get better at the job. He agreed to talk to me about how he thought about his work in a project that became a PhD.

What struck me then, and has stayed with me since, is how clearly he understood his connection with his listeners. He understood it was a strange asymmetrical relationship, but that didn’t mean it was one-sided.

The first question I asked him was how different he was off-radio compared to on. He told me:

I don’t think [it’s] very different at all. People walk up to me in the street and start talking to me like they’re my friend and in fact they are. They are my friend. I don’t know them very well but they know me extremely well.

I don’t think [it’s] very........

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