Normally, I try not to read podcasts’ show descriptions before I start writing the recaps. Maybe it would be helpful to have a bit of an outline of what the week’s topics are, but I prefer surprise. At least, most of the time I do.
According to the iTunes show description this week, this is what we’re in for: Hezbollah targets the Lebanese media: the real definition of “green collar”; and Bob’s hate love relationship with the new Newseum.
I’m looking forward to this love/hate business. On with the recap!
Brooke is out again this week. She could be sick, or on vacation, but she’s missed an awful lot of work lately. She could also be at home nursing her recent Grand Theft Auto addiction. If that’s the case, then an intervention may be in order.
Bob sounds a little too happy to be hosting alone this week - he says “Brooke is out this week” like he’s trying to muffle his giggles.
Now for the media - the show opens with a story of Hezbollah’s suppression of the Lebanese media. Hezbollah is doing just about everything they can to shatter Lebanon’s press freedom. They’ve got the phones, they’ve got the press, and they “knocked the TV station off the air”. Though that last one sounds like a charming little accident, it’s not. Bob assures us that Hezbollah is not just “a few (big pause) young people at a checkpoint with AK-47s.”
No, dude, not a terrorist cell, that’s Brooke’s GTA alias.
Next up - Bob talks some politics, because it is an election year. There’s nothing really to mention about this, other than this quote from The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank: “People tend to be assuming that the president isn’t playing a very large role in the life of the nation.”
You should really take a listen to this story, as Milbank’s descriptions of people are kind of hilarious. One man who is the sole employee of a publication that may or may not exist shows up to the White House press room “resplendent in a sparkling silver jacket”.
This story has some of the things that I love about “On the Media” - well spoken guest, hilarious observations, and a sprinkling of simile.
Remember how a few paragraphs ago, I mentioned that Brooke may be in need of an intervention to save her from her video game addiction? The next story is a sign that this is what’s going on.
Segment opens with the sound of a frying egg and a voice saying ominously, “this is your brain…” Brooke! Can you hear us? Bob is trying to subtly reach out to you by doing a story on drugs, like crystal meth. It’s dangerous, addictive and being combatted by a series of radio ads about teenage prostitution.
I’m not sure exactly how that’s supposed to work. Most teenagers are kind of like me as an adult - they don’t really handle “no” too well. Apparently, the somewhat creepy “Reefer Madness”-style ads are working, even though 44 percent of the teens surveyed think that there are “great benefits” to meth.
I’m not even sure what to say to that.
The show is actually pretty great this week - lots of interesting stories peppered with Bob’s outright glee to have run of the hosting duties make for a fantastic show.
I mentioned earlier that in this episode, we get to hear Bob have a bit of cognitive dissonance. I was entirely too happy about hearing Bob experience what I go through every time I recap. I was even more excited when I found out that the love-hate was over something called the “Newseum” (a word that sounds appropriately like nauseum).
The Newseum, for the uninitiated, is a museum dedicated to journalism, media, and the First Amendment. Sounds pretty good, right? To make things even better, the bathrooms are monuments to great journalistic bloopers. To a girl who has a Great Moments In Journalism vacation planned, this sounds awesome.
But Bob has to make fun of it, which means I have to make fun of Bob. I agree with him - I’m not sure why Rupert Murdoch’s desk phone is there, and I’m equally confused by the journalistic relevance of the Berlin wall (Bob’s rationale - it was in all the papers).
Bob proceeds to snark all over the Newseum in a way that I only wish I could. I haven’t been yet, but when I do, I’ll verify what Bob says.
I’m going to end this recap the way I wish Bob had ended the Newseum story:
“Prepare for time travel, and also your theater seat wiggling electromechanically to simulate the real-life thrills and spills of press freedom.”
Yep, sounds like another week here at R/S headquarters.
This week’s recap was written by Kerry and edited by Matthew, who both have something they’d like to say to the absent Ms. Gladstone:
An Intervention from Radio Sweethearts on Vimeo.
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