MPR

I've always been a bit of a news junkie, and I follow a variety of sources around the internet to keep tabs on what's going on in the world. While living in Austin, I fell in love with public radio. The UT-run public radio station KUT always ran a really excellent mix of NPR and PRI content, and introduced the BBC World radio service to a more prominent time slot. Admittedly, if you listened to it all day you'd hear a few repeats, but overall the content was fresh and enjoyable.

Imagine my dismay when I would visit Houston and be subjected to Houston Public Media. I guess in theory it's public radio, but the NPR/PRI content was few and far between, and it seemed to be just another Talk Radio station (which Houston has never had a shortage of!).

So I was thrilled when NPR introduced the NPR One app to the iPhone, but it still required you to stream content from your data plan.

Enter what a friend of mine termed "MPR" - Mely Podcast Radio. Using my podcast app, I download the episodes I care about and just put them on shuffle in my car. This was how we passed many hours between Austin and Arlington, on what is otherwise a very straight and very brown stretch of land. I'm sure it's lovely in the spring, but gee was it sad driving through there in early January.

One of the highlights was listening to the entirety of the This American Life spin-off with Sarah Koenig "Serial" - wow! It was gripping and mind boggling. Definitely useful when driving for long stretches to keep your mind engaged rather than drifting off...

So even though I have more substantive posts planned (and backlogged!) this is what I was able to come up with because it's been over a month since my last post and I felt kinda bad.

Here's a list of what's included on MPR - all come highly recommended!

Quick Hits:
NPR Topics: World Story of the Day
NPR Topics: Story of the Day
The Economist iTunes/Soundcloud (though I often skip the Babbage reports; I wish they had just a feed for "The Economist Explains...")

Longer Podcasts:
This American Life
Serial
Smart Women, Smart Power
The Broad Experience
NPR: Fresh Air
The Economist: Special Reports iTunes/Soundcloud

Funny/Interesting/Other Podcasts:
Welcome to Night Vale - a long-running story told by Cecil through the Night Vale Public Radio Station of an odd town where even odder things happen... ALL HAIL THE GLOW CLOUD!
The Bugle - Before you knew and loved John Oliver on the Daily Show or Last Week Tonight, he and a few friends started a weekly-ish podcast where they mercilessly mocked the news and occasionally launched in to pun-runs so horrible, so cringe-worthy, you'll realize why puns are the worst thing ever.
The Daily Show Podcast without Jon Stewart - 100% no Jon here. None, nada, nope. For those who enjoy the show as much as I do, this is an interesting venue for the special correspondents and producers to talk about what happens behind the scenes, including how the comedic sausage is made. Also, pizza recommendations for whenever you're in New York City.

I have a few more podcasts that I've downloaded but have been too busy to listen to yet, so I'm looking forward to diving in to NPR's Invisibilia, The Memory Palace, Thrilling Adventure Hour, and TLDR.

For that last minute cramming before your language tests - I have one coming up this Thursday! Eep! - I recommend NHK Japanese Radio in Arabic and French, and News in Slow French (the podcast I found through the Apple store is free!). The BBC also does longer broadcasts in Arabic (BBC Xtra!) but those have more topical than news reporting, and aren't as straight forward as the NHK ones. Good for improving your understanding of dialects though.

Well that's all for now. Happy listening!