With his poll numbers slipping even on issues previously dominated by Republicans, and critical media coverage of his administration higher-ups making headlines every day, the president and inner circle have been visibly dodging and deflecting for several weeks now. But where is John Kerry? Is the Democratic challenger intentionally lying low, saving his media strength for the last lap? And is this the strategy that he used to win the first time around? No and no, says former Kerry rival Howard Dean. Bob discusses the campaign with the world's leading expert on getting skunked by Kerry.
A federal appeals court in Philadelphia this week joined the ranks of those who disapprove of the FCC's recent decision to relax media ownership caps. Bob and Brooke give a brief update on the status of the deregulation skirmishes.
While the recording industry presses on with its lawsuits against online music downloaders, there are indications that more people are file sharing than ever before. Ever since the early days of Napster, file sharers have said that a prime attraction of the peer-to-peer services has been the unavailability of quality music in stores and on commercial radio. NPR's Rick Karr takes a look at the ways in which major labels are actively driving musicians and fans to the Internet and other new technologies.
When a band refuses to play by the music industry's rules, does it thereby give up all chances of success? Not necessarily, if the story of Wilco is any indication. The band's brand-new album is yet another example of how it has continuously resisted categorization, and in doing so, defied the rules of the industry's game. Brooke speaks with Wilco chronicler Greg Kot about the backward business models that the band has rejected, and with Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy about the values that it has embraced.
Since its inception three and a half decades ago, public radio has evolved from a network of stations primarily broadcasting classical music to a source for nearly around-the-clock news and information programming. The gradual change was largely the result of extensive audience research showing that more people were interested in talk programming than in niche music programming. Bob talks to David Giovannoni, who carried out much of this research, about the tricky endeavor of maintaining public radio's core values while maximizing the size of the public that it serves.
Some audience research suggests that classical music lovers shun modernity, but one of the best-known classical pianists embraced everything the latest electronic media had to offer. Halfway through his creative life, Glenn Gould renounced live performance and declared he would henceforth express himself solely through media. OTM's Senior Producer Arun Rath climbed down from his ivory tower to deliver this appreciation of one of the 20th century's most controversial classical musicians.
Most people - music lovers or not - know the dastardly feeling of getting a tune lodged in your head, and not being able to get it out. Brazilians call such tunes chiclete de ouvido, or "ear chewing gum." Here they're known as "earworms." Brooke offers this rumination on the kinds of ears most likely to be sticky, and the kinds of songs most likely to get stuck. Listen at your own risk
Highlights from Past Shows
The 9-11 Commission concluded this week that there is no credible evidence of a collaboration between Iraq and al Qaeda in planning the attacks on America. The President and other administration officials deny they ever said there was a collaboration… but maintain that there was contact. What part do the media play in this battle of semantics? Christy Harvey compiles the "Progress Report" for the Center for American Progress, a liberal Washington-based think tank. She and Bob discuss the anatomy of this story
Ronald Reagan is gone, but at least as far as the cable news networks are concerned, he is not forgotten. Not so with most of the other important news items this week, which were relegated to the nooks and crannies between the Gipper coverage. OTM pauses to consider the casualties in a week of saturation death coverage.
On the Media is funded by The Bydale Foundation, The Ford Foundation, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Overbrook Foundation.
