August 20 - 26, 2017
THE LIST
1. This American Life - "We Are in the Future"
One of the most ambitious episodes of This American Life I've heard in the past couple years, "We Are in the Future" delves into the Black futurism movement. The conceit, spoiler alert, is that the future has already come to pass. From a look inside a Detroit political campaign inflected with the ideology, to the implications of the movement in the comic book world, to a harrowing recounting from a young black woman who endured a role as a slave on George Washington's estate and, yes, the zany and magnificent song from clipping (Hamilton star Daveed Digs's alt-rap group, for the uninitiated) - this stretched my concept of the American experience in a way that the show does not always accomplish. That is to say, many of the show's stories are fundamental to the present experience of the country, but this episode encompasses past, present and future in a prescient way that is hard to pull off - even for TAL.
2. Code Switch - "The Unfinished Battle In The Capital Of The Confederacy"
NPR hosts a variety of opinions on their various programs and generally does an excellent job of reporting and remaining unbiased. That said, the trusted radio giant doesn't tend to foster extreme opinions. Maybe that track record is what made the testimonial on this episode, from a man with a passion for the former US confederacy, so palatable. I'll admit that the confederate flag connotes one thing and one thing only for me - racism. By in large my opinion remains unchanged, but for the first time I was able to somewhat understand the ground on which some supporters of confederate statues stand. There may not be any place more capable of generating such thought than Codeswitch, and the conversation about another Virginia town not named Charlottesville on this week's episode is some hearty food for thought in the greater context of statues in America.
3. Hang Up and Listen - "The Blackin' Out the NFL and the Sun Edition"
There was a time when sports entertainment could largely be sanctioned off in a corner free from the perils of critical thought. Sure, people have always talked about the strategy of a coach or the abilities of a player or the breakdown of a specific game, but off the field issues were relegated to the errant criminal episode that might befall an individual . Which, really, was just a projection of field-related issues - you can't play in the big game inside the big house. There have of course long been people of conscious who have sought to link struggles for equality across the lines of a field or court. A shift began arguably as early as the 1990s with the advent of ESPN's Outside The Lines, and as ESPN's coverage expanded a natural vacuum began to demand more information. This meant that any kind of detail that might be seen to have an effect on a game would be pushed into the mainstream of public consciousness. Yet still, in my lifetime, there has never been an extra-athletic event as public and pervasive as the one currently facing us with Colin Kaepernick and the deviousness of the NFL. Long-term effects of concussions, toxic work environments, and the ever-more-obvious tilt of racial bias among owners are but a few of the troubling things discussed aptly on this iteration of thoughtful sports podcast Hang Up And Listen. This episode gave me some serious pause about what I'm implicitly supporting by following the NFL.
HONORABLE MENTION
Planet Money - "Robocall Invasion"
Love and Radio - "Reunion"
99% Invisible - "Person in Lotus Position"
SOMETHING NEW
Rough Translation, NPR's latest podcast offering, positions itself as "a show where we look at how the things we talk about are being talked about somewhere else in the world." My first thought after hearing this tagline was Isn't this what NPR has been trying to do forever? To make international stories relevant to an US audience? This may well be the case, but the public radio behemoth has never been so blunt about couching its goal. For me, a regular and longtime listener to whatever NPR affiliate graces my current city, this seemed a bit heavy handed. Shouldn't I already be interested in the goings-on across the world without having a line drawn to my specific experience? Ironically, after sampling the first episode, I didn't feel like the correlation was being made evident enough.
To kick off the series, Rough Translation focused on a story out of Brazil that revealed a new policy: jobs exclusively reserved for black people. It's a compelling story, detailing the process of how to prove your skin color in order to qualify for a new government sponsored program. Other than a nod to the idea that skin color is more of a construct in the US than in Brazil, there was just not a lot of one-to-one "translating." Maybe I'm being too literal. So I move to episode two, which boasts the attention grabbing title "Ukraine vs. Fake News." This immediately seemed more precise, with a specific analog to a broad American phenomenon. Again, other than a quick note about journalistic integrity fighting Trump, there isn't a lot of setup of the American side of things. From my perspective, however, this didn't need as much in the way of introduction. I've followed the fake news conversation, from the way a story can generate real world consequences to the news mills in Macedonia, and so maybe I'm simply more primed for this story to make the connection on my own.
Other than the lack of pointedly tying content together, there is little to criticize here. The reporting is solid and the source material is grade A. Much like NPR's Embedded, Rough Translation takes a story that could've been a 4 minute spot on All Things Considered and unravels it into a carefully considered tapestry of investigative journalism. Which is to say, if that's your thing, you will definitely like this show. If the producers were to lean into featuring more exposition of the American angle, it could lead to drawing in a new (possibly more jingoistic and less NPR-friendly) demographic. Is that the right thing to do? I'm not sure. But either way, I'm intrigued enough to follow along and see how it evolves.
Rough Translation, NPR
Recommended for: The public radio faithful, and/or open minded longform audio news journalism toe-dippers.
Rating: Make It Work
1. This American Life - "We Are in the Future"
One of the most ambitious episodes of This American Life I've heard in the past couple years, "We Are in the Future" delves into the Black futurism movement. The conceit, spoiler alert, is that the future has already come to pass. From a look inside a Detroit political campaign inflected with the ideology, to the implications of the movement in the comic book world, to a harrowing recounting from a young black woman who endured a role as a slave on George Washington's estate and, yes, the zany and magnificent song from clipping (Hamilton star Daveed Digs's alt-rap group, for the uninitiated) - this stretched my concept of the American experience in a way that the show does not always accomplish. That is to say, many of the show's stories are fundamental to the present experience of the country, but this episode encompasses past, present and future in a prescient way that is hard to pull off - even for TAL.
2. Code Switch - "The Unfinished Battle In The Capital Of The Confederacy"
NPR hosts a variety of opinions on their various programs and generally does an excellent job of reporting and remaining unbiased. That said, the trusted radio giant doesn't tend to foster extreme opinions. Maybe that track record is what made the testimonial on this episode, from a man with a passion for the former US confederacy, so palatable. I'll admit that the confederate flag connotes one thing and one thing only for me - racism. By in large my opinion remains unchanged, but for the first time I was able to somewhat understand the ground on which some supporters of confederate statues stand. There may not be any place more capable of generating such thought than Codeswitch, and the conversation about another Virginia town not named Charlottesville on this week's episode is some hearty food for thought in the greater context of statues in America.
3. Hang Up and Listen - "The Blackin' Out the NFL and the Sun Edition"
There was a time when sports entertainment could largely be sanctioned off in a corner free from the perils of critical thought. Sure, people have always talked about the strategy of a coach or the abilities of a player or the breakdown of a specific game, but off the field issues were relegated to the errant criminal episode that might befall an individual . Which, really, was just a projection of field-related issues - you can't play in the big game inside the big house. There have of course long been people of conscious who have sought to link struggles for equality across the lines of a field or court. A shift began arguably as early as the 1990s with the advent of ESPN's Outside The Lines, and as ESPN's coverage expanded a natural vacuum began to demand more information. This meant that any kind of detail that might be seen to have an effect on a game would be pushed into the mainstream of public consciousness. Yet still, in my lifetime, there has never been an extra-athletic event as public and pervasive as the one currently facing us with Colin Kaepernick and the deviousness of the NFL. Long-term effects of concussions, toxic work environments, and the ever-more-obvious tilt of racial bias among owners are but a few of the troubling things discussed aptly on this iteration of thoughtful sports podcast Hang Up And Listen. This episode gave me some serious pause about what I'm implicitly supporting by following the NFL.
HONORABLE MENTION
Planet Money - "Robocall Invasion"
Love and Radio - "Reunion"
99% Invisible - "Person in Lotus Position"
"When journalists arrive, the war starts" - Anton Skyba, Rough Translation
SOMETHING NEW
Rough Translation, NPR's latest podcast offering, positions itself as "a show where we look at how the things we talk about are being talked about somewhere else in the world." My first thought after hearing this tagline was Isn't this what NPR has been trying to do forever? To make international stories relevant to an US audience? This may well be the case, but the public radio behemoth has never been so blunt about couching its goal. For me, a regular and longtime listener to whatever NPR affiliate graces my current city, this seemed a bit heavy handed. Shouldn't I already be interested in the goings-on across the world without having a line drawn to my specific experience? Ironically, after sampling the first episode, I didn't feel like the correlation was being made evident enough.
To kick off the series, Rough Translation focused on a story out of Brazil that revealed a new policy: jobs exclusively reserved for black people. It's a compelling story, detailing the process of how to prove your skin color in order to qualify for a new government sponsored program. Other than a nod to the idea that skin color is more of a construct in the US than in Brazil, there was just not a lot of one-to-one "translating." Maybe I'm being too literal. So I move to episode two, which boasts the attention grabbing title "Ukraine vs. Fake News." This immediately seemed more precise, with a specific analog to a broad American phenomenon. Again, other than a quick note about journalistic integrity fighting Trump, there isn't a lot of setup of the American side of things. From my perspective, however, this didn't need as much in the way of introduction. I've followed the fake news conversation, from the way a story can generate real world consequences to the news mills in Macedonia, and so maybe I'm simply more primed for this story to make the connection on my own.
Other than the lack of pointedly tying content together, there is little to criticize here. The reporting is solid and the source material is grade A. Much like NPR's Embedded, Rough Translation takes a story that could've been a 4 minute spot on All Things Considered and unravels it into a carefully considered tapestry of investigative journalism. Which is to say, if that's your thing, you will definitely like this show. If the producers were to lean into featuring more exposition of the American angle, it could lead to drawing in a new (possibly more jingoistic and less NPR-friendly) demographic. Is that the right thing to do? I'm not sure. But either way, I'm intrigued enough to follow along and see how it evolves.
Rough Translation, NPR
Recommended for: The public radio faithful, and/or open minded longform audio news journalism toe-dippers.
Rating: Make It Work
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