Most journalism in our country lacks the sense of joyous discovery one gets in Radiolab. There’s none of the enthusiastic “Yes!” “No!” “Yes!” “You heard me right!” “Get outta here!”
I've posted this before, but if you haven't read it yet, and any part of what you do involves trying to tell people a story that they will be moved by and remember, you should: Ira Glass's radio manifesto.
I tend to have big pretentious, tiresome thoughts about how important that is. Real journalism – and by that I mean fact-based reporting – is getting trounced by commentary and opinion in all its forms, from Fox News to the political blogs to Jon Stewart. Everyone knows newspapers are in horrible trouble. TV news continually loses ratings. And one way we broadcast journalists can fight back and hold our audience is to sound like human beings on the air. Not know-it-all stiffs. One way the opinion guys kick our ass and appeal to an audience is that they talk like normal people, not like news robots speaking their stentorian news-speak. So I wish more broadcast journalism had such human narrators at its center. I think that would help fact-based journalism survive. But like I say, I’m kind of a nut on this subject.
*On the podcast note - can anyone recommend a really good art-specific one?
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