The Podcast Review

The ABC is Australia’s national broadcaster (publicly funded) and Radio National is the flagship radio network; producing original, serious content that has wide applicability.  About half of the following programs are very Aussie-centric, but the other half can apply to almost any listener.  There’s plenty here to discover and explore -

360: radio documentaries (rss feed / itunes page)
All in the Mind: consciousness and mental malfunction (rss feed / itunes link)
Artworks: summary of the week’s high art news (rss feed / itunes link)

Australia Talks: daily talk back and call-in show (rss feed / itunes link)
Away!: aboriginal affairs (rss feed / itunes page)
Background Briefing: big ticket current affairs, weekly (rss feed / itunes page)

Big Ideas: lecture series from prominent people (rss feed / itunes page)
CounterPoint: counterviews to the current thinking (rss feed / itunes link)
Edpod: educational news and views (rss feed / itunes link)

Encounter: the clash of morality and modern life (rss feed / itunes page)
Health Report: medical science, weekly (rss feed / itunes link)
Hindsight: looking back at Australian history (rss feed / itunes link)

Late Night Live: lively political discussion (rss feed / itunes link)
Law Report: applied and practical legal matters (rss feed / itunes page)
Life Matters: daily interviews on lifestyle matters (rss feed / itunes link)

Music Show: weekly overview of the professional music scene (rss feed / itunes link)
Science Show: weekly magazine of interesting research from around the world (rss feed / itunes link)
Spirit of Things: earnest questioning of the spiritual path and modernity (rss feed / itunes page)

Verbatim: lengthy interviews with long-lived Aussies (rss feed / itunes link)

shows have a 4 week archive, before the mp3’s disappear into the ABC website.  This is a generous allowance, and strikes a fine balance between accessibility and having to maintain an extended bandwidth presence via the iTunes store.  Very fair.

many of these shows were my mainstays before I discovered the world of podcasting, and I have so many fond memories of a small transistor radio and headphones plugged into my mind.  Many ideas, many worlds opened up via these presenters and guests.  So much to be grateful for.  Hope you can find some joy here.

the ABC Program Site for Radio National

Radio Rookies is an outreach initiative on the part of WNYC – the largest NPR affiliate in the U.S.  The Rookies program aims to bring the voices of teenagers and their stories to a wider public.  They hold one or two workshops a year, where they train youngsters in the art of producing audio, then broadcast the finished product.  The end result is polished, authentic, real, and very satisfying.

The youth of our culture have so many stories to tell, so many experiences that are not represented in the wider media.  The harshness of day to day living – of being in an underclass, being in a family with little money, or being overweight or having a disability – these are the experiences conveyed.  The stories are spliced with audio bites with friends, relatives, and street sounds.  The narration is excellent, as scripts go through repeat edits.

The difference between a raw audio feed and a highly worked radio program is like the difference between a raw vegetable and a prepared steaming vegetarian stew.  Almost unrecognisable.  There are merits to the former (cheap, ‘natural’, unfeigned) but the latter works on all the senses and is a concentrated hit.  Such is the Radio Rookies experience.

I loved listening to these stories – these are real people, telling it the way it is.

Radio Rookies – celebrating our youth.

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itunes link
home page

this is the most amazing show.  For the larger, curvier woman (ie size 14 and above) a career in the public eye as a model or actress may seem to be out of reach.  Well. Chenese Lewis says no.  Having succeeded herself, she wants to convey to others the message of acceptance.  Large is not ugly in her eyes, large is not something to be shunned.  Here we have a different notion of beauty and reality.

Body image is something that wracks our culture.  It has always been a blight for the young women, but even today, men seem concerned with their skin tone, muscle tone, and general appearance.  It is almost as though we are elevating the exterior over the interior, valuing what we perceive with our senses, rather than trusting our instinct and gut feeling about a person.  The cult of the exterior is dangerous indeed.

this talk / interview show is wonderfully refreshing.  Produced rather spasmodically (two or three times a month) there is a wonderful archive of 30 shows going back a year.  The shows themselves are an hour long, and usually have 3 guests.  It keeps things moving, and provides a prism of opinion; a big advantage over 1 hour 1 guest shows.

the host is interested, without being over-forced, leading the discussion well.  Truly wonderful and inspiring; we are all the same underneath.  Spirits cloaked in a body’s garb.

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iTunes link
show page

this is a weekly radio show that looks at money, and how it affects your life.  It’s starting point is that if you don’t control your finances, you don’t control anything.  There is a weekly guest who looks at the world of money through a different lens: shows are brisk and high energy.  The topics go further than mere book keeping and strict accounting – career transitioning and doing what you love are keys to finding a long term, satisfactory income.  Ad breaks are a little annoying, but the usual fast forward gets you through here.

The world of money impacts almost every aspect of human existence and activity: getting a better handle on it can only mean more power to the individual soul.  We may not like to deal with it, but it IS a necessary evil, a means of commerce and transaction.  For the moment, at least, we accept it.

Fascinating wide ranging topics.

rss feed
itunes link (most recent 20 shows)
home page (complete archive going back to April 2008)

it has been my consistent view that Information Technology fundamentally shifts the nature of the human experience; for so many centuries and millenia, information and knowledge was gated down certain pipes; you had to be in the know to ‘know’.  It was a constraint of physics (overhearing a conversation) and technology (parchment, and printing press).  Knowledge was constrained.  Decisions were made with limited data.

with the advent of the computer, and more recently, mass adoption of high speed internet, this limitation has, essentially, been removed.  Knowledge is, for all intents and purposes, a shared space with the likes of google and twitter search.  You have a directed tap into whatever field or real time conversation that your mind aims towards.  It is powerful, and heady.

yet knowledge is not everything.  There is a higher level that exists, and I would posit that it encompasses the world of ‘Understanding‘ and ‘Wisdom‘.  So while we have knowledge and technique on tap, we have to be aware that there is a different game in town; something else being played out.   That’s why, although I have a keen interest in tech and its developments, I remain shy of becoming an uber-geek, and giving myself over to a technocentric world.  I fear there is a trap at the end of the tunnel of funneled electrons.

Supernova – is a blogtalk radio show all about the Network Age.  It investigates the consequences of having an always on, always conencted society.  It’s main approach is from that of the provider – ie, the company and corporation – those that deliver the services that we all rely on.  For example, here is a show on Google Wave, and one on Modern Coding.   But there are also more humanist approaches, asking the questions of how to Digitally Disconnect, and what Twitter Truly Means for us.  Topics are broad and engaging.

The shows themselves go for an hour, but could have done with some editing.  Although the show is recorded live via blogtalk, there are options to upload your own mp3’s, and I feel a better product could have been delivered with some careful curation.  There are some stretches where the conversation lags, and basically, there is a lot of dead, empty air.  This is a shame, because the ideas presented are wide-ranging and deep.  A bit of fast forwarding will aid you in getting the most out of this podcast.

in short, the Ideas are powerful, but the presentation is a little off.   Enough gold to glitter for the seeking eye.

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itunes link
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this is a very enjoyable weekly show that covers the week’s cultural happenings in a panel discussion format.  The 4 hosts are Jody, Stephen Metcalfe, Dana Stephens, and Julia.  They are wonderfully verbal and linguistically skilled; throwing in a dictionaries’ worth of adjectives and conjunctive pronouns; very rarely have I heard the word ‘delimit‘ used so many times in so short a span of time; aural wonder for those inclined to artistic spinning of language.

the shows themselves course over the 45 minute mark; with 3 main stories, and suitable endorsements (ie sponsor segments) thrown in.  If you are looking for intelligent, leftist, slightly wanky observations on the state of American Culture, this is the place to sign up.  This episode which kicks off with a keen putdown of 30 Rock is a winner.

Cultural Happenings come to define the stories that we live by; through analysis and pithy thought, we can come to a greater and deeper understanding of the forces that move us this way or that.  Culture is the bedrock which ultimately binds us together.  Those who fail to understand it, become pawns of it.  Let us look, examine, and cogitate.  And use extinct words as much as we can.  Out.

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family is important; everyone knows that.  But so often our parenting styles are the ones we inherited from our own parents – our attitudes, our aspirations, our forms of punishment and reward.  And so, to progress as human and moral beings, how we raise our children is something that should be considered quite seriously.

Cliff and Stephanie Ravenscraft have three children.  They are also founders of the gspn Podcast Network.  Family from the Heart is one of their more earnest and direct shows (they also do tv related podcasts, and tech focused shows) and truly cuts to the quick.  Recent episodes have looked at being too over-protective parents, and some of the issues in the educational system – whether to hold one of their children back a year in class because their school grades were borderline on progression.  These are real-life issues, and these two parents weigh things carefully.

the podcast has quite a following, and one of the best features of the show is listener callback on previous episodes.  It is very communal, and a sharing of life experience.

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itunes link
home page