{"id":587,"date":"2012-05-13T15:03:26","date_gmt":"2012-05-13T22:03:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/?p=587"},"modified":"2012-05-17T09:33:57","modified_gmt":"2012-05-17T16:33:57","slug":"podthoughts-by-colin-marshall-the-big-ideas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/?p=587","title":{"rendered":"Podthoughts: The Big Ideas"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/center>Vital stats:<\/strong>
\nFormat: elucidation of oft-name-checked but thinly understood ideas
\nEpisode duration: 9-20m
\nFrequency: monthly, almost<\/p>\n

My brain has filed Benjamen Walker, host and producer of WFMU\u2019s Too Much Information<\/em><\/a>, as one of our time\u2019s major public radio martyrs. Yes, the man seems alive and well, but public radio martyrdom doesn\u2019t require literal death. He can go on breathing, eating, sleeping, and working, making intricate audio pieces for which people express great admiration on the internet; he simply must symbolize the bizarre thanklessness of crafting fine sonic media. When Bill McKibben wrote a piece for the New York Review of Books<\/em> on just this phenomenon<\/a>a couple years back, he quoted Walker directly:<\/p>\n

[Too Much Information<\/em> is] good enough that 240,000 people have downloaded some of the twenty episodes he\u2019s made so far. That\u2019s a lot of people, but it\u2019s zero money, since podcasts, like most websites, are by custom given away for free. Walker\u2019s previous show, a similar effort called Theory of Everything<\/em>, was widely promoted on the Public Radio Exchange, and six public radio stations across the country actually paid for and ran it. \u201cI think I made $80,\u201d he says. \u201cIf I thought about it too hard, I would just quit. It\u2019s much better not to think about it.\u201dThis brings to mind Memory Palace<\/em><\/a> creator Nate DiMeo\u2019s alternately encouraging and debilitatingly discouraging article on public radio production<\/a>. Walker commented<\/a> with a j\u2019accuse<\/em> against stations willing to pay for digital consultants, brand consultants, and \u201ccontent executives\u201d instead of, uh, content. A bold declaration, you might think, although I personally would have tossed in an indictment of stations\u2019 badly limiting and increasingly shameless tendency to pander to, and only to, listeners\u2019 fear of having their ignorance exposed at the office water cooler. No surprise, then \u2014 or not so much of a surprise, anyway \u2014 that Walker\u2019s latest high-profile project comes not in collaboration with a traditional public radio outfit, but with the British newspaper the Guardian<\/em>. Together they bring you The Big Ideas<\/em><\/a> [RSS<\/a>] [iTunes<\/a>], a podcast on just those.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the whole thing at maximumfun.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vital stats: Format: elucidation of oft-name-checked but thinly understood ideas Episode duration: 9-20m Frequency: monthly, almost My brain has filed Benjamen Walker, host and producer of WFMU\u2019s Too Much Information, as one of our time\u2019s major public radio martyrs. Yes, the man seems alive and well, but public radio martyrdom doesn\u2019t require literal death. He […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-podthoughts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=587"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":589,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587\/revisions\/589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}