Saturday, February 02, 2008

The News Junkie Podcast

A personal promise that I would follow every idea I had to its logical conclusion in 2007 resulted in the News Junkie Podcast, which is now three episodes old. The idea behind the podcast on the CNN-IBN website is to strip down any issue to its bare essentials, so as to allow for a greater understanding. The format is simple - I have a conversation with someone who is familiar with the topic being discussed.

For instance, the second podcast was on the US elections and tackled basic issues such as, 'What is a caucus?', 'How does it differ from the Indian process?' and so on. Surya Gangadharan, CNN-IBN's foreign editor gave his interesting take on the polls.

The third and the most recent one was on the just-concluded test series between India and Australia. I spoke with Mukul Kesavan, cricket fan, writer of the immensly popular blog and book, Men in White, The Ugliness of the Indian Male and Other Propositions and one of the more articulate people around.

The podcast also allows me to pick any topic (that's topical) and do pretty much what I want with it. No editorial agendas.

It's still a work in progress, and you may see a difference between the first podcast (on the Karnataka political crisis with National Affairs Editor Diptosh Majumdar) and the one with Kesavan. And hopefully, there are droves of people who would want to listen to it regularly.

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