My Favorite Podcasts

Here are my top five podcasts of the moment:

1. On the Media Possibly the best weekly news show on the radio simply because they spend the hour looking at what the media has been looking at and how they're doing it (or aren't). If you're like most news junkies you get plenty of day by day or minute by minute news coverage. How often do you examine the lense(s) through which your news is delivered? From bottom feeding scum like Rush Limbaugh to actual news organizations, Bob and Brook examine the stuff in the filter.

2. Le Show Every week Harry Shearer brings you up to date and fills in the gaps as he reads "The Apologies of the Week," "News from Outside the Bubble," "News of the Warm," "The Trades," investigates buried leads, and offers up phone calls between the President (is he still in office?) and his dad, mom, etc., "Dick Cheney: Confidential" and many more irregular features. This show has been broadcast for over 25 years and is available on a gazillion radio stations, shortwave, satellite, netcast, and podcast. The online version has the advantage of letting you hear the excellent music Harry plays.

3. Radiolab This show is something else. It takes the sonic possibilities of the medium to their extremes. Nothing else sounds like it and in many ways nothing else approaches the content. This is an advantage of the small number of new shows per year. The drawback is there are so few shows per year.

4. This American Life I don't need to say much about this show. It's the only radio program that I can almost bet will bring tears to my eyes at some point and make me laugh at another (or at the same time). Beautiful writing, production, and musical selections, masterful story telling and easy flow. The television show is also tremendous.

5. BBC Radio Comedy I'm kind of cheating by lumping these together but I'm going to anyway. The Friday Night Comedy Hour is reliably funny. "The Now Show" changes places with "The News Quiz" every month or so. I like "The News Quiz" better. There are a couple of comedy DJ duos I enjoy as well.