Because Dan said so…

So I have become an avid consumer of podcasts. They’re how I get an awful lot of my news and information about the world. But I am also fairly selective in what podcasts I listen to (I’d like to think), given that there are so many out there. The majority of the ones I listen to are of radio shows from Public Radio, and they include both dailies and weeklies.

KCRW in Santa Monica provides three of the shows which I listen to. First of all, it’s the source for my main news analysis show, their daily show To the Point (Monday-Friday). This is an excellent hour-long show with interviews, in-depth analysis of a variety of issues and serious debate between a whole host of different knowledgeable people, giving all sorts of insight into what’s going on in the world. It’s obviously mainly focused on US events, but it does have a global slant as well. I listen to this on the way to and from work and find that it keeps me well informed about what’s going on in a way I wasn’t previously.

The other shows KCRW provides me with are weekly and are Harry Shearer’s Le Show and their weekly debate show Left, Right and Center (featuring Matt Miller, Arianna Huffington, Tony Blankley and Robert Scheer). I wish it lasted longer than half an hour, because it’s really refreshing to have a debate show that covers what’s going on in the news between intelligent people without it turning into demagoguery or shouting talking heads. I may not always agree with all (or any) of the people, but they’re at least intelligent and well-spoken and capable of expressing themselves in a way that doesn’t involve having to be completely disrespectful of the other side. Le Show includes a variety of different things, usually his segments of News from outside the Bubble, Apologies of the Week, News of the Inspectors General, News of the Warm, as well as various sketch portions for which he does all the voices. These are often biting satires of public radio, the entertainment industry, phone calls between Bush 41 and 43, or other various things. Extremely entertaining as well as informative and enlightening.

Of course if we’re looking for entertaining shows from public radio, we can’t forget Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! Their weekly news quiz, featuring a rotating panel of hosts (in addition to Peter Sagal and Carl Kassel). Some of the funniest stuff on radio, and not just because they had Dennis Kucinich on there giving part of the Gettysburg Address in his Donald Duck voice once…

There is also WNYC’s fantastic show On The Media (OTM for short), which examines the Media, their effect on our lives and our society. Hosted by Bob Garfield and Brooke Gladstone, it’s profoundly insightful and incredibly illuminating on a whole host of issues relating to both modern media issues such as freedom of information during the most recent administration and wiretapping, not to mention the downturn in the print press and its effect on journalism, as well as covering older stories, like the tale of pirate border radio stations in Mexico and their importance for close to 50 years in the 20th century.

And then there is the classic. This American Life from WBEZ in Chicago. And it really does produce some of the most fantastic (and consistently so) radio I can think of. The stories are compelling, the people in them are fascinating, and you just can’t stop yourself from listening to the whole thing. I went and saw Ira Glass speak in Ithaca a few years ago, and what he said was most telling about how powerfully the show draws people in is the statistic of the average length of time people listen to an episode, if they catch it on the radio: 48 minutes. Since the show lasts an hour, most listeners are tuning in for the whole thing, clearly. And of everyone else, they basically listen from the moment they tune in until the end. It’s not something where you start to listen and then stop a bit later. It’s the kind of show that people stay sitting in their cars to listen to the last ten minutes of. It’s that good.

Finally there are some podcast only shows that I listen to: NPR’s Planet Money, which started up this last fall and which is a daily that lasts about 15-20 minutes. It’s done by about four people (Adam Davidson, Laura Connaway, Alex Blumberg and David Kestenbaum), and it provides the most insightful and best analysis of the economy I have found to date. Alex and David both worked on TAL, previously, and Adam and Alex put together an award-winning show for TAL (and a follow-up episode) explaining the mortgage meltdown last spring. David is also a former particle physicist and quite a nice guy; I met him when he gave a colloquium at UMD this fall. I really can’t say enough good things about this podcast. I wish I had time to post more comments to their blog and say more avidly fan-boyish things, because it’s that good. I finally understand what Credit Default Swaps are, how Short Selling works, what the TED spread really means, and how it all affects me. And I wish I’d learned more economics somewhere along the way. But tragically I don’t see how that’s going to happen any time soon.

Last but not least is The Moth. These are true stories told on stage without notes. Just that. Some are funnier than others, some are more sad and touching, but they’re all compelling and intriguing. They’re about 15 minutes or so (sometimes shorter), and well worth a listen. Also weekly.