Radio Sweethearts

Bob isn’t off this week; he’s just hunkered in a bunker. Brooke sunk her feelings into a clunker of an opening to this week’s episode.

Sort of like how I just did, back there.

Anyway, I don’t know what’s up with Bob being away from his regular microphone – and I know that coupling a decent microphone with Skype can result in some pretty nice sound quality, but it sounds like Bob Skyped in over dial-up using his computer’s built-in microphone – after first recording his part of the show on an Edison cylinder.

(It wasn’t that bad. Over speakers in the kitchen, I didn’t notice the decrease in quality that Bob bemoans – and though I did notice when listening on headphones, I think it’s because I’ve begun listening for that kind of thing. (I’ve edited so much audio in the last few months, that I’ve begun to be able to read waveforms like you’re reading these words here.)

(Also, Bob, Brooke, Katya – you don’t know bad audio quality until you’ve had to edit something recorded via BlogTalk Radio.)

Bob felt that his audio quality was apparently bad enough that Bob needed Brooke to read the intro to his first story for him, as though she were reading him a bedtime story to help him sleep after a long playdate with a friend from preschool.

But what’s really bad is the blatant plagarism that “On the Media” unintentionally reveals at the end of the episode. There’s apparently a play about the closing of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, in which – well, we’ll just let Brooke explain it:

BROOKE GLADSTONE: One of my favorite scenes is this reporter calling a politician and they are narrating their subtext.

[CLIP]:

ACTOR AS FEMALE REPORTER: Indirect question.

ACTOR AS COUNCILMAN: Insincere confusion about the point of the question.

ACTOR AS FEMALE REPORTER: Restatement of question.

ACTOR AS COUNCILMAN: Off-topic comment.

ACTOR AS FEMALE REPORTER: Same question.

ACTOR AS COUNCILMAN: Deep rumination and troubled contemplation.

ACTOR AS FEMALE REPORTER: Same question.

ACTOR COUNCILMAN: Mmm, complicated reasons why the question itself can’t be addressed as posed.

Now, this is no ‘indirect question’ I’m about to ask. It’s really closer to a direct accusation. In fact, it’s not a question at all. It’s a statement, because it’s a fact, and there’s nothing I can do to blunt that. I can only delay it, and I’ve done too much of that already.

This section of the play is lifted more or less directly from the 10th act of the “This American Life’s” episode, “20 Acts in 60 Minutes.” It’s about 25 minutes in, you can find the episode here. And try and tell me that it’s not dubious.

This week’s highlights reel was written by Matthew, much later than it should have been, and, if it had it been edited by Kerry, would have included the disclaimer that it’s probably no more plagarism than it would be if someone else started a public radio fanblog.