It’s gotten to the point that the rumors themselves have become an more important news story than what they might be about or whether they’re true.

If the rumors are the news, how do you report them while making sure that Paterson’s “alleged misconduct” doesn’t get shortened to “misconduct?” Well, we just use the word “alleged.”

The difference between "alleged misconduct" and "misconduct" is that we KNOW Fleetwood Mac all slept with one another in a bed made of pure cocaine.

But this story is more complicated than that. Gov. Paterson hasn’t been accused of anything. His ‘alleged misconduct’ hasn’t been alleged yet – the rumors are merely that the New York Times is going to publish a story laying those rumors bare.

What that means is this: David Paterson, governor of the state of New York, is under fire for rumored alleged misconduct.

WTF, news media, WTF?

At least “All Things Considered” has the decency and wherewithal to report the story as it is and investigate how it got that way. It even includes this truly classic public radio line: “This truly is the scandal that dare not say its name — because nobody really knows what the heck it is.”

It’s a perfect walk on the balance beam between reporting rumors and sussing out why we love rumors.

The lesson I’ve learned from NPR’s story? More questions.

• Can we please wait for something to become a story before making these premature ejaculations of reportage into a completely new story?
• Or has the New York Times succumbed to the same pathetic tactic of terrible Hollywood blockbusters and cult TV shows?
• Are they building undeserved hype in the name of selling papers?
• Are they trying to sex up their political coverage?

I know times are rough for newspapers, but I’m not so sure that hiking up the Gray Lady’s skirt is the way to fix it.

This guy:

Is John Oliver. He’s the guy whose name we were looking for.

And he’s going to win the States back for Mother England. Which would be good for England, because, as Madeline Brand unwittingly implies, they probably don’t have TVs or anything over there.

From Memphis, Tenn., this is Senior Male Correspondent Matthew Crawford Trisler.

Abumrad’s version, however, is less of a minimalist piece than it is an aleatoric wunderkammer of sounds found, created, and manipulated. Coming at the end of the podcast, it reminds me less of Sufjan than it does the Books, which, come to think of it, might be why I’m so attached to Radiolab in the first place.

Because if you aren’t familiar with the Books’ aesthetic – whether you dig Radiolab or not – it’s a crime. Let’s fix that.

The Books – Thank You Branch

"Alberto Gonzales on line 2...." by Vaguely Artistic, Flickr.

It’s more or less like his stuff on “This American Life,” with his sense of humor shifting rapid between wry and dry. (With a voice and delivery like his, it’s hard to believe his sense of humor to be anything but wry and/or dry.)

The production of the show is fantastic – “WireTap” sounds like what would happen if Ira Glass hired Nick Van der Kolk from “Love and Radio” as a producer.

By which I mean two things:

1. It sounds approachable and familiar, but with an underlying sense of unsettling avant garde absurdity.
2. Awesome.

(Seriously, can someone get Nick to produce a segment for “This American Life?” Even if they just use the Lady Sovereign episode?)

One of the greatest things that Goldstein brought over from This American Life is the random clip from the middle of the show. Glass & co. use it to cram words into the mouth of Torey Malatia, but the genius twist that Goldstein employs is to release those clips as mp3 ringtones.

Just like this one: WireTap: Lucky Lady

Also, the first time I noticed, really noticed Goldstein was on this TAL episode, “Special Treatment,” wherein his friend Howard reminds me uncannily of a good friend of mine from high school.

Gross expected him to be as outrageous as his reputation (and his character on “30 Rock”). Instead, when he wanted to be vulnerable and talk about his painful childhood, she took that as a signal to keep asking him painful questions and then gasping in disbelief when he got choked up and began to cry.

At one point, it even sounds like she’s laughing at him for crying – which, even though I’m willing to believe Gross’ laughter was largely a manifestation of discomfort, sounds remarkably cruel.

Out of respect for Morgan, and out of distaste for Gross’ handling of the interview, I’m not going to link to that story. You know how to find it, anyway.

Instead, what I am going to link to is the greatest “Fresh Air” interview ever. So great, in fact, that I can’t actually link you to audio from the interview on NPR.org. Or a transcript. This is Terry Gross’ great lost interview.

So great that when the interviewee asks Terry Gross, “Don’t you love this interview? Tell me the truth,” she does tell the truth: “Well, I think it’s kind of a drag, because you’re making speeches, and being intentionally obnoxious.”

And then she erupts in nervous laughter as he continues hitting on her, insulting everyone and offering some tips to give NPR some serious style.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you – unearthed direct from the fiery vaults of Hell – all 26 harrowing minutes, 54 incendiary seconds of: Terry Gross of “Fresh Air” versus:

GENE

CHAIM EVER LOVING WITZ?! WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN EATING?!

SIMMONS!

(Of rock band Kiss, as if you didn’t already know.)

Seriously, it’s amazing, and will explain this post’s title in more detail than you ever cared for.

This effect is most pronounced when the person talking needs to explain the relevance of the subject. One of the greatest strengths of “Planet Money” is that the show’s staff is learning along with the rest of us. They’re able to explain in layman’s terms why news is important because they’re laymen themselves.

You’ll notice that “Marketplace” doesn’t take this tack. They assume you already know why almost any story having to do with money is important – money, after all, makes the world go round.

That’s great for people who already know a lot about money, just as the “Writer’s Almanac” is great for people who already care about literature, but neither program does a damn thing to explain why their subject is important, let alone bring you up to speed if you’re coming around.

Normally, Brooke, Bob, and everyone on the “On the Media” staff does a remarkable job of clueing the listener in on why their stories are interesting and relevant. Which means I need to expand a little bit on something I said last night.

I said both “the story tends to drone on into one of Bob’s favorite topics” and “Brooke, too, falters a little bit (to my ears) when talking about one of her favorite topics.”

Sadly, when they get to report on stories that they’re passionate about the result is lackluster – though their enthusiasm shines through, their real strength lies in getting us to care. When the host already cares passionately about their subject, it’s easy to forget that the audience doesn’t automatically agree.

I know that I’m not innocent of this. I like serious poetry, and I care deeply about the craft and literary criticism. But if I start talking about it to Kerry without illustrating why it’s important to the conversation, I’m met with either a blank stare or the sentence “stop being pretentious.”

Nevermind that pretentiousness implies to me a sense of forced superiority, not the excited feeling of “hey, I really like talking about this, let’s talk about this, come on, let’s go!”

Public radio – when you get past the smooth and smarmy voices – is full of people like me, who are curious and eager to just explore the world, figure out how it fits together, and to learn why that’s important. And it’s at its best when it’s slightly out of its area of expertise.

Muncie was a city built on the manufacturing industry, and it was spared somewhat from the Great Depression, owing largely to the Ball brothers and their famous jars. However, in the last decade to decade and a half, manufacturing has packed up and moved out of town.

East Central Indiana’s standby auto factories have been gone longer than I’ve been able to drive. The city is not weathering this economic downturn nearly as well as it did the Depression.

"downtown" by the Spacebase on Flickr.

And frankly, that’s as far as I want to prepare you for “Hard Times in Middletown,” a special about Muncie produced by Marketplace and American RadioWorks.

It’s a great short series about the town – focusing almost entirely on people outside of the Ball State University bubble, and it’s a sharp contrast. Spending my life on or nearby campus, I saw economic struggles, but it was always the economic struggle of the college student needing to decide between another beer or a burrito.

The people they focus on are actual community members, and you get the sense, through the production, that the audio was recorded in the forced closeness of a Muncie winter.

My only complaint about “Hard Times in Middletown” is the same one that you can guess Kerry would have – Kai Ryssdal. It just seems that, when he visited Muncie, Ryssdal would have been less likely to hang out and drink with townies – the subject of the special – at the Heorot, the Fickle Peach, or the Thirsty Turtle, and more likely to pal around over Cosmopolitans with his fellow big foreheaded, hair slicked back, finger-gun-rights activist Miles at the douchebaggy, if tasty and reasonably priced martini bar just off campus.

"Millions of Faces" by MarcooJethro® on Flickr

And that you should listen for the line, “He was looking at me like I had three eyes, 32 faces.”

Also, the Moth doesn’t post their stories to their webpage, so you’ll have to subscribe in iTunes (or whatever you use for podcasts) to hear it.

Brighton P(ier) by agincourtjim's fly tipping extravaganza on Flickr

It’s the first photo used in the eerie and awesome radio drama, “The Flickerman.”

It originally aired in London earlier this year, and you can poke around with the whole thing, but WFMU’s Acousmatic Theater Hour is re-broadcasting it in its American debut. The first episode aired Monday, July 20th. (I promised Karinne, from the show, that I’d post about it by then, but I spaced it, and am only now getting around to it – I’m sorry, Karinne.)

Acousmatic Radio Theater broadcasts Mondays at 5 eastern. If you’re not in the WFMU broadcast area (and we’re decidedly not), you can listen online via WFMU.org, through the streaming radio built into iTunes (find them under “public”) or through the recently updated Public Radio Player iPhone app.

As for the show, It’s absolutely excellent to hear radio drama redeemed from its old-timey stereotypes – not to mention the iron grip of Mecha-Garrison Keillzilla. The story is impossible to describe without making it sound gimmicky or like “Lost” for radio geeks.

I’m a little reluctant to compare it to “Lost.” I don’t really watch TV, and even if I did, I’m guessing it’s way too late to get into something as convoluted as that show.

The thing about “The Flickerman” is that while, yes, you’e a week behind the WFMU broadcast, it’s only three hours. The whole thing is online. you can catch up easily.

And one more thing: When I say the whole thing is online, that’s exactly what i mean. It uses Flickr photos extensively. Be prepared to follow along.

It’s clear that O’Reilly isn’t a dues-paying member of his local public radio station, even if just for the classical music that I’m pretty sure would soothe his grumpy little balding head.

I mean, seriously, he calls “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me” host Peter Sagal an “NPR reporter.” Apparently, not a single Fox News lackey thought to tell poor Walrusbreath (for that is how I assume O’Reilly’s breath smells – like grumpy walruses) that Peter Sagal is – wait, wait… – a game show host.

Do you think that Mr. O’Reilly would similarly hold Howie Mandel to the same journalistic standards as, say, his own reporting staff?

If the following clip is any indication, then that answer is yes. And I don’t mean that he has a great deal of respect for Howie Mandel. I mean that Bill O’Reilly has no journalistic standards.

This is not news.

But it bears mentioning that attacking someone as they’re trying to just enjoy a cup of coffee, and then dismissing everything they say does not count as journalism. It’s not even the ambush journalism that bothers me. It’s the fact that O’Reilly then dismisses everything Janeane Garafalo has to say, simply because she’s a woman.

He doesn’t say outright that’s why he’s dismissing her, but when he sarcastically asks, “attractive, isn’t she?,” then I think it’s pretty clear what he means – the only reason Bill O’Reilly will ever listen to a woman is if he finds her attractive.

And it points out one more way I have to disagree with him. Janeane Garafalo is attractive. Very much so.

What’s more important is that she’s got more wit and brainpower than O’Reilly and his entire bevy of brainwashed, bosomy bottle-blonds can seem to muster.

(Also, he’s balding.)