Podcasts 1

So I listened to two relatively related—content wise—podcasts: NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour and Combat Jack's The Read. The latter of which I listen to weekly at my leisure. Though these two podcasts are starkly different in terms of presentation of the news, I did find their format to be similar. They both have internet personalities who host and run down a gamut of topics.

Because I listen to The Read, I choose to listen to NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour so I could hear from a different perspective on pop culture/entertainment news. Pop Culture Happy Hour is presented to be a tongue-and-cheek approach to news reporting—in the vein of Jon Stewart or Bill Maher. However, I found NPR to be much more bureaucratic and formal when talking about the hard news stories, which are few and far in-between. The rest of the show was really just cluttered with shallow pop culture games, such as: Can you guess if I am naming a Game of Thrones character or a Jimmy Choo shoe? It seems like they host's consciousness avoid talking about the hard news stories or inserting an opinion to keep the tone of the podcast lighthearted. Even though I did find some humor in this podcast, I believe they may be targeting an older more mild listener.

The Read on the other hand is far less mild approach to discussing current events. This show takes the most talked about news stories of the week and briefly explain them, before the hosts insert their personal opinions on those topics. The two hosts did not hold back on discussing the events leading up to the unrest in Ferguson, MO, as well as, why the Kardashian's are useless. With this type of podcast, I believe that listeners will like or dislike it depending on whether or not their views align with hosts who are expressing strong opinions. Otherwise, who would want to spend an hour of their time listening to viewpoints that they disagree with?