Podcast Recommendation of the Week - Number 4

Podcasts are great for listening to a show I missed during the day, or a show that's not available on the radio. But to keep up with current events I daily listen to radio live-streaming on the internet. That is quite possibly my favorite perk of this amazing technology age. All day long at my studio I tune in to different NPR stations through my computer, stations too far away to pick up through my humble radio antenna.

While I get ready in the morning I do listen to one of three local NPR stations I can tune in on the tape-to-tape AM/FM boom box I bought back in college. I am lucky to be within range of New Hampshire Public Radio (NHPR), Boston College Public Radio (WBUR) and the Grandmama of them all, WGBH. (Which I know stands for Great Blue Hill because my dad always pointed out the actual hill as we drove past it when I was a kid).

At my studio the radio reception is terrible so I turn on my PC and boot up Windows Media Center where I have my favorite stations bookmarked.

In the mornings I love Morning Edition, news and culture for several hours.

From 10 AM to 12 noon I love listening to WAMU's The Diane Rehm Show. Diane talks with pundits about politics, experts about issues, and authors about books. It's also a call-in show so she takes questions from the audience. She is very smart and engaged. Don't let her voice throw you. She has a tremulous tone due to a paralyzed vocal chord, but she will certainly grow on you if you give her a chance. I especially recommend her lively Friday News Roundup.

If Diane isn't covering a topic I'm interested in, I'll turn to energetic and engaged Tom Ashbrook with WBUR's On Point, a similar format show. both Tom and Diane are great at coaxing callers to get to the point.

At noon I like Here and Now an hour long program also from WBUR. This show covers national stories a bit more in-depth with longer interviews and also goes a bit off the beaten path sometimes to find interesting musicians and such.

At 1 o'clock, I hate to miss Fresh Air with Terry Gross. Fresh Air is an hour long interview program that covers news and culture in a thoughtful entertaining way. The topics can be silly or serious. Always excellent. This is the kind of show that gets me interested in a person or topic even if I'm absolutely sure I don't care.

2 pm is Talk of the Nation. It's actually on from 2-4 but my local stations have dropped the second hour so I turned to the NPR Broadcast Schedule linked from the show page to locate WNJN in New Jersey which plays both hours. Isn't that cool?

At 4 it's time for the venerable evening news program All Things Considered. Just hearing the iconic theme song is enough to make me feel all is right with the world even if the news they are about to tell me proves my feelings wrong.

By the time Marketplace comes on at 6 or 6:30 I am usually back home cooking dinner. I love listening to the day's economics news in this half-hour, easy-to-comprehend format.

So now you know the extent of my NPR addiction. But I am not ashamed! NPR keeps me entertained, informed and sane. Invite me to your cocktail party, I know at least a little bit about everything going on in the world. :)