The prestigious Peabody Awards, which recognizes the most outstanding achievements in electronic media, including radio, television and cable, were announced last week.
These are my notable ones from the 2008 winners list (and I'm not being biased in picking two from NBCU):
Onion News Network (www.theonion.com)
The Onion
The satirical tabloid's online send-up of 24-hour cable-TV news was hilarious, trenchant and not infrequently hard to distinguish from the real thing.
I've been a consumer of Onion for over a decade now...to enjoy segments like “Prague’s Franz Kafka International Named World’s Most Alienating Airport.”
NBC Coverage of 2008 Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony and Zhang Yimou (NBC)
NBC Olympics
An exponential magnification of what was once known in television as a "spectacular," the Beijing opening ceremony was crafted and choreographed by creative director Zhang Yimou, executive produced by Dick Ebersol, produced by David Neal and directed by Bucky Gunts.
This American Life: The Giant Pool of Money (Public Radio International/NPR)
Chicago Public Radio's This American Life, National Public Radio, News Division
The first-ever collaboration of "This American Life" and NPR's news division, this report was impressive for the arresting clarity of its explanation of the financial crisis we're in, and even more so for its having aired so early - May 2008.
Entourage (HBO)
Leverage and Closest to the Hole Productions in association with HBO Entertainment
Hollywood gets an affectionately merciless tweaking in this picaresque about an ambitious male starlet, his posse of pals, and his multi-faced agent.
Saturday Night Live Political Satire, 2008 (NBC)
SNL Studios in association with NBC Universal Studios
The late-night legend stole the election-year thunder from its satirical competition on cable and may have swayed the race itself.
Nanking (HBO)
A Ted Leonsis Production in association with HBO Documentary Films
Human decency rises to confront human atrocity in this powerful, newly documented remembrance of a small group of Westerners who saved thousands of Chinese during the 1937 "rape of Nanking" by Japanese invaders.
Showing posts with label This American Life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label This American Life. Show all posts
April 6, 2009
March 30, 2009
"Reset" - The new buzzword to describe the current U.S. economy
I talked about 2008 being the year of Great Disruption in my March 8th blog post, referencing Tom Friedman (NYT) and Paul Gilding
I argued that this Disruption is not merely a down phase of an economy's usual up-and-down cycles, but rather represents a reset to new sustainable paradigms on several fronts. "Reset" is apparently becoming the new buzzword to define the current climate of American economy. It's on the cover of the Time magazine's latest issue of April 6th.
Here are a few excerpts from the Time's cover story that lists excesses in America during the quarter century period starting early 1980s and leading up to the current global financial meltdown:
Yes, none of the commercial news outlets wanted to kill the buzz.
However, National Public Radio (NPR), the listener supported public radio in America, by far my favorite news source, ran a full hour program on this topic on May 9th, 2008, four months before the crisis surfaced on the mainstream news. "The Giant Pool of Money," an hour-long episode of This American Life (TAL), a production of Chicago Public Radio, in collaboration with NPR news, provided one of the most insightful investigative anatomy of the sub-prime mortgage mess in a vivid and humorous narrative easily understood by common man. I'd strongly encourage readers to listen to the May 9th TAL podcast.
NPR business reporter Adam Davidson, who co-created the above podcast, claimed in a recent Fast Company article that the financial crisis story demanded public-radio-style journalism. "I don't think this is a good story for newspapers, to be honest with you. Because it's an emotional story, it's a shocking story. We're used to all the people who formed the architecture of our economic infrastructure having the voice of God -- like Alan Greenspan. They're the experts and they understand the world and they're going to explain it. And business journalists had that tone too. We're now in a world where anybody who tells you they know exactly what's going on, you can just dismiss them as a liar."
I argued that this Disruption is not merely a down phase of an economy's usual up-and-down cycles, but rather represents a reset to new sustainable paradigms on several fronts. "Reset" is apparently becoming the new buzzword to define the current climate of American economy. It's on the cover of the Time magazine's latest issue of April 6th.
Here are a few excerpts from the Time's cover story that lists excesses in America during the quarter century period starting early 1980s and leading up to the current global financial meltdown:From 1980 to 2007, the median price of a new American home quadrupled.
The Dow Jones industrial average climbed from 803 in the summer of 1982 to 14,165 in the fall of 2007.
From the beginning of the '80s through 2007, the share of disposable income that each household spent servicing its mortgage and consumer debt increased 35%.
Average household savings decreased from 11% of its disposable income in 1982 to less than 1% in 2007.
...until the late '80s, only Nevada and New Jersey had casinos, but now 12 states do, and 48 have some form of legalized betting.
From the beginning to the end of the long boom, the size of the average new house increased by about half.
During the boom years, the average American gained about a pound a year, so that an adult of a given age is now at least 20 lb. heavier than someone the same age back then. In the late '70s, 15% of Americans were obese; now a third are.
We knew, in our heart of hearts, that something had to give....no one wanted to be a buzz kill.
Yes, none of the commercial news outlets wanted to kill the buzz.
However, National Public Radio (NPR), the listener supported public radio in America, by far my favorite news source, ran a full hour program on this topic on May 9th, 2008, four months before the crisis surfaced on the mainstream news. "The Giant Pool of Money," an hour-long episode of This American Life (TAL), a production of Chicago Public Radio, in collaboration with NPR news, provided one of the most insightful investigative anatomy of the sub-prime mortgage mess in a vivid and humorous narrative easily understood by common man. I'd strongly encourage readers to listen to the May 9th TAL podcast.
NPR business reporter Adam Davidson, who co-created the above podcast, claimed in a recent Fast Company article that the financial crisis story demanded public-radio-style journalism. "I don't think this is a good story for newspapers, to be honest with you. Because it's an emotional story, it's a shocking story. We're used to all the people who formed the architecture of our economic infrastructure having the voice of God -- like Alan Greenspan. They're the experts and they understand the world and they're going to explain it. And business journalists had that tone too. We're now in a world where anybody who tells you they know exactly what's going on, you can just dismiss them as a liar."
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