Episode 13: What's the Big Idea?

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Today's big idea, nicely described by Episode 13: What's the Big Idea?, is an idea of hope.

Instead of pulling the perpetual public media double deal—begging with one hand while the other works the commercial sector for ads to run, the same lack of adequate public-commercial separation I lamented in Episode 10: Defined by Absence—why not let the donors decide on how many ads they care to hear by allowing donations to offset ad revenue needs?

This hope is sadly dashed when one realizes how the plan could, well, succeed, which would pose an existential threat to those dependent upon selling ads. Still, it's a good starting plan, provided the public media currently locked into the ad contracts and/or obligations stop obfuscating the issue and address it head on . . . which, given On The Media's "Who's Gonna Pay For This Stuff?" episode ain't gonna happen anytime soon.

We hear in this episode some disco snippets, a bit of dialog from Ben Stein's most famous role, outtakes from the OTM episode listed above, and a bit of "Cyberstalker" from Psychadelik Pedestrian.

Oh, and lest I forget, a delicious selection from like-minded YouTube ranters, folks obviously completely in line with the main themes of this here podcast, graces and enhances your listening experience. There's (wait for it….) Thomas!, the dude calling himself doubleheader, a guy named douglas, The Angry Aussie, and . . . a notable other. Sadly, this other has been deleted (as far as I can tell) from the YT line-up. Perhaps the ranter deleted this himself. Given the content—the delicious, delicious content—I doubt it, but there seems to be no way to find out, sadly.

Episode 12: Care Through Correction

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Episode 12: Care Through Correction considers another way to regard the increasingly tabloid press we suffer today, a press that must concern itself more with grabbing eyeballs and earholes to appease its advertisers than it may concern itself with tenets of good journalism, touchstones like sobriety, verifiability, and—most of all—accuracy. Could it be that this increasingly unreliable press of ours is actually abrogating its responsibility not just to its audience, but to the society in which it operates? Can it be—with lurid and shallow reporting, with less and less concern about correcting past errors—failing in its implicit duty of care?

As Lord David Puttnam asks in his TED Talk, what happens when the media's priority is profit?

I made some corrections in this episode to Planet Money's Episode 524: Me and Mr. Jones. In the interest of holding myself to the standards I beg the media to re-embrace, check my checking yourself by heading over to Wikipedia and looking up both the Merchant Marine Act of 1924 (aka the Jones Act) and the Passenger Vessel Services Act of 1886. They are different. See for yourself!

Music by Psychadelik Pedestrian, "Pacific"; Springtide, "Little Pink Guitar (in that closet)"; and (of course!) Mistle Thrush.

Addendum, The Next Day: The quick and accurate ears of listener l33tminion note that 34 years separate the Passenger Vessel Services Act from the Jones Act, not 24 as I stated in the episode. I regret the error.