News

Listening to news is a tricky business with podcasting. Considering that the very nature of podcasting allows you to download podcasts and carry them with you to listen to at your leisure, it doesn't seem as if current events would translate well. However, many people get their newsand even weatherfrom podcasts, keeping up with the shows and putting them at the top of their listening list.

When NPR began podcasting many of its more popular shows, including its news shows, people subscribed. The major television networks followed closely with podcasts of Meet the Press (NBC), Nightline (ABC), and Face the Nation (CBS), as you can see from Figure 3.5.

Figure 3.5. The News and Politics: Featured Podcasts from iTunes lists dozens of different news podcasts.

The corporate podcasters have a monopoly on news podcasts, but it is possible to do your own take on the day's current events. Most podcasters prefer to have a political bent to their news podcasts, but there are a few who focus on current events and weather. Table 3.9 lists a few independent news podcasts.

Table 3.9. Independent News Podcasts

Host(s)	Podcast	Website URL
John Wall	The M Show	themshow.libsyn.com
Ed Roberts	KC Weather Podcast	kcweather.blogspot.com
Russell Holliman	Mobilepodcast.org	www.mobilepodcast.org

The M Show

John Wall hosts The M Show out of Boston. This is a great news and entertainment show that is the perfect length to listen to on a short commute or treadmill jaunt. The show is released five to six times a month, with an average length of 10 minutes per episode. The show is G-rated.

"The format is 10 minutes of news, talk, and entertainment. I try to keep it really tight, and I just start in the first 3 or 4 minutes [with] whatever I have seen in the news over the past 4 or 5 days. And it tends to focus more on either business, marketing, or high-tech kind of stuff, but if there are bigger issues in the news, I'll bring in anything that catches my attention. Over in the talk section I try and include just two or three question interviews with either people I know or anybody of note that I can get that I feel like talking to. That has been the biggest challenge, trying to line up people for that segment. In entertainment I try to close with just a minute or two of a book or DVD that I have seen that I can recommend."

John Wall, The M Show

The KC Weather Podcast

The KC Weather Podcast is hosted by a meteorologist Ed Roberts, and was the first weather podcast. The show is released just about every day, and the average length is around 4 minutes per show. The show is G-rated.

"Basically what my podcast is, is weather forecasts for Kansas City. It is very specific, very localized, so as a result you do not get a whole lot of listeners with regards to that, but it is something I love to do."

Ed Roberts, The KC Weather Podcast

Mobilepodcast.org

A more opinionated and sardonic look at the community (called Podcast Island) comes from Russell Holliman of Mobilepodcast.org, who keeps up with current events and gives his own take on them, including predictions on the future of podcasting, both within and without the community. Russell also covers the current events of Houston, TX, as read from the Houston Chronicle, a paper for which he has no qualms in showing his disdain.

"Audioblog I suppose is the best way to describe it. I've always said that it is a technical experiment in totally mobile podcast techniques, but that was mainly to deflect all the criticisms of the content.... I have nothing else to talk about. I mean, people talk (or blog) about the things they "know"and although my shrink would argue that I don't know myself at all, my opinions are my most constant source for material. But what else could I talk about? I am not into music.... I don't have a female partner to talk dirty with.... The whole "I love the Treo [smartphone, his original recording setup]" thing has been done to death.... Why do people blog personally, and why do others read those blogs?"

Russell Holliman, Mobilepodcast.org

Podcasting About Podcasting

There is one area of the news that hosts several independent podcasts, and that's podcasting news. At first, people scoffed at people who podcasted about podcasting, but a few shows are starting to stand out as entertaining and useful. Perhaps the most popular of these is the Podcheck Review (www.podcheck.com), hosted by Scott Fletcher, who recounts the happenings in the community.