Podcast mania

Living in China has it's many perks, but I still really miss diverse, objective, and tenacious journalism and media... which is definitely not available here. Or is it?

For my daily fix of news, features, and general what not, I've become a podcast connoisseur. These TiVo'ed radio shows for your iPod provide me with more than enough to listen to (I don't have a video iPod... yet). At first, I was skeptical because I believed that it was only for techie nerds by techie nerds. Now, I'm realizing that it's the next generation of radio where HAMM broadcasters can fight for the same listeners and bandwidth as the major stations.

So much more than just news updates, today alone I was able to study Chinese. learn new grammar for the GRE and win Carl Cassell's voice on my home answering machine (the last one's only theoretically).

Yet, few major radio stations have made the jump to pure original programming sponsored specifically for the podcast listeners, there are still quite a few gems out there to keep me interested and informed about a wide range of topics during my walk to class in the am.

Some of my favorites:

Slate Magazine podcast. Daily one-story podcasts from Slate magazine reporters offer a brief and interesting view on topics from Bush's foreign policy to the 80s show Moonlighting. Under ten minutes, the clips are succinct and interesting. Their gabfest round table discussions are great too. www.slate.com

SciAm podcast. A weekly podcast from the Scientific American magazine offers a 20min look into that week in science. I don't know jack about science, but I'll listen to it to try to change that. If it's not that interesting, I just delete it. www.sciam.com

NPR: Wait! Wait! Don't Tell Me!. My favorite weekly show from Chicago public radio is now free to me online. This is how I spend my saturday mornings. Just like home. Yet, calling in would be a hassle, so I doubt Carl will do my answering machine message. Wait, I don't have an answering machine.

History Channel and Discovery Channel also put out their own podcasts, so they're interesting to listen to on a long train ride or a long walk to a coffee shop to study. Which brings me to GRE and Chinese study guides. I can learn Shanghainese AND improve my English language discourse with these programs.

I'm hooked. Most of the 'outside' world has probably already picked up on just how sweet podcasts are, but like China, I'm a little behind.