Can I share my thoughts on podcasts for a minute? Are you okay with that? I mean, I can just share a few thoughts about a problem or two that I have with some podcasts—maybe two problems, I don’t know, I’m just thinking out loud here.
If everyone’s okay with that, I’ll just share, and you don’t have to read it. I’m not saying you have to read anything I write here. That’s silly.
So, here’s what I’ll do. I’ll share a few thoughts on podcasts and then we’ll move on to regular blogging. Okay? Okay.
When Rush Limbaugh died earlier this year, I didn’t know what to say about him. I listened to his show for a several years in the 90s and 00s. He was a top-notch professional who put together the best talk show on radio. There were times I got tired of it (political news can drag somedays), but the other shows couldn’t keep up. I heard a bit from Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck, but they just couldn’t fill the hour like Rush could.
I’m going blame him for training my ears to good radio. Now, I have a hard time listening to the way some people talk on air. Some podcast hosts just talk to much. That’s probably a common complaint. A couple podcasts I like say their listeners complain about too much friendly banter, saying they want solid conversation only. That’s not my complaint. Friends talking cheerily isn’t something I get often.
My complaint is something I’m calling structural talk or talking about talking. The best example of this is killing a joke with explanation. Some people can’t let a quip or witty remark go by naturally. They have to gut it and pull out its heart to diagram the funny.
A more common example of structural talk is what I demonstrated at the beginning of this post. When podcast episodes are an hour or longer and several minutes are burned with talking about what they’re going to talk about, I can’t continue to listen. Closely related to this are the hosts who explain their point into the ground. In both cases, the talkers are thinking with their mouths without empathy for their long-suffering listeners.
Brevity, you may have heard–I mean, you know this right? Stop me if you know this already–is the soul or heart or core, the important part is what I’m getting at–the central part of whit. That’s what brevity is.
Let me say this again /cut/
I’ve never gotten into podcasts. Talk radio has been my thing for years, but less so recently. The only show I really look forward to is Dennis Prager’s, because it’s only partly about politics. I prefer general-interest shows that talk about all of life. And if there’s a couple of hosts talking back and forth, that’s even better.
I listened Prager some, but I think he conflicted with Rush. I listened to Hugh Hewitt a bit. I don’t remember how much. I’ve started catching his Hillsdale College dialogues on podcast. They are engaging.
My radio listening depended on my workload. Most of the time my work allowed for streaming radio over the Internet. I haven’t had that freedom for many years, and I’m thankful to have a device that can subscribe to podcasts now.