Posts Tagged ‘Marketplace’
What is Old is New again
As I continue working on my book about the public radio pledge drive, I came across a quote from Susan Stamberg’s “Every Night at Five”, published in 1982.
“We ask people what they make of the tax cut, the threat of radioactivity, Watergate.” “Their reactions are barometers of the political climate. Lyndon Johnson is supposed to have said that when Walter Cronkite criticized his Vietnam War policy, he knew he’d lost ‘Middle America’. During Watergate, when a Nixon voter in Manhattan, Kansas, told us he’d lost faith in the president, we knew Richard Nixon was suffering heavy losses.”
I found this the day after reading Kyle Pope’s critique in the Columbia Journalism Review on how the media missed the in/out debate by paying too close attention to the left/right debate. That, after hearing Scott Simon commenting on criticism of the media in wake of the election. And that, after discovering an interview PRI’s Andrea Seabrook did with Current magazine back in August where she articulated the same thing; the “what unites us is much more than what divides us” argument, and how many people are angry about the same things. For example, in Portland, Oregon, KBOO news director Lisa Loving said she was pitched a story of Wall Street Occupy protestors reaching out to Malheur Occupy protestors.
Ms. Stamberg’s quote reminds me that the media goes through cycles of lucidity. With the election of our president-elect, it seems it has, again, emerged from a period of darkness. And while it parries criticism, it will double down on a new way to explore something that it once learned, forgot and has apparently found again.
Extruded Answer
Kai Ryssdal of Marketplace was talking to Jeff Selingo, author of the book, “There is Life after College“. He responded to a comment Mr. Selingo made about how, instead of recruiting seniors, businesses are now looking at sophmores so they can “try them out before they buy them.”
“That’s a little harsh”, Mr. Ryssdal responded. And then, three seconds of silence which, in radio, is a least one and a half forevers.
You could feel Mr. Selingo being pulled through the tiny hole Mr. Ryssdal had formed around his incredulity over how colleges are being ruthlessly business-like. Eventually, almost reluctantly it seemed, he replied. This led me to two observations;
1. I thought Marketplace was a business program that stared clear and cold eyed at business realities. This surprises you, really?
2. Again, the crushing weight of radio silence bent another human to its will.
I’ve talked about the host pause before, so no need to dwell on it here except to say, man, does it work.
Add it Up
I just heard a story on American Public Media’s “Marketplace” about a group of hackers that stole almost a billion dollars from some of the world’s largest banks. The story didn’t identify the banks because, … oh who knows why. I’ll get to that in a minute. However, the reporter noted that the hackers were careful as to steal only 10 million dollars per bank before moving onto the next bank. The assumption seems to be that a bank won’t notice a theft of 10 million dollars being slowly stolen over a long period of time.
But, if you divide 10 million into 1 billion, that means hackers hacked about 100 banks this way. And if you assume that they probably focused on the top 100 banks in the world, and you know what that list is, then you can probably make an educated guess as to which banks got hacked.
Sometimes, when reporters tell a story, they can’t always just say what they want to say. Sometimes, they don’t know. Or sometimes, there are political consequences. Or sometimes, they know in their gut but can’t say something definitively and categorically. So they have to bury those fine points in a story and assume; and hope the listener is really listening and smart enough to connect the dots.
I talked about something like this in a post last year. Then as now, I’m talking about how the real story depends on a relationship between the listener and the reporter that goes beyond the actual words coming out of their mouths and into the spaces between the lines.
BTW, here’s a list of the top 100 banks in the world.