I’m a big fan of NPR -- not just because I’m in the 40-something, socially liberal, reasonably monied, Manhattanite, intelektual, granola-eating demographic -- but also because in addition to giving quality information and occasional good laughs on humor shows, it’s also been pretty good at making sure its material is available via the Web and podcast, and giving lots of other material to delve deeper. Some of the shows are also quite good at encouraging audience interaction and feedback, via not only phone but also blog or email or comment board.
My local station, WNYC, is great at all the above, and also available on YouTube. Or, rather, pieces of many of the high-quality talk show interviews are. Seeing them this way has a couple of plusses: It’s oddly compelling to watch Alice Walker or Daniel Schorr or Arianna Huffington or one of the other myriad high-quality guests at the the mic, and see how they looked while they were talking, even though it’s a static grainy picture.
It’s also a way to quickly survey who was on the channel organized in a way that’s not available on the WNYC site -- not by show and topic, but rather by guest in either chronological or “favorited” order. Plus the thumbnail photos make the scan easier. Sometimes the eye recognizes John Edwards’ face more quickly than his written name. Wonderful how the cross-referencing and digitization of information leads to new ways of looking at it.
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