Meghna Chakrabarti at WBUR would like to talk to you. In fact, she wants to ride the bus with you for a story. Contact her at [email protected].
Even if you're not a new busser, check out her new blog, which is all about working at 'BUR, and where she wonders how the station can really break into hyperlocal reporting work:
... I want to strap us onto a NCC-1701E nacelle and kick it up to warp 10. ...
Tell their Web guy what's wrong with wbur.org. And don't hold back: One critic wins a Car Talk mug. But you'll need to go full-bore kvetch by the end of the week.
But Pulitzer winner Sacha Pfeiffer isn't going far, Adam Reilly reports: She'll become health and science reporter at WBUR.
Ken George, new media honcho at WBUR, is having a bit of trouble coming up with a name for his new blog. Come up with a good name and a This American Life T-shirt (in Chinese) is all yours.
WBUR should either finally hire him so people can start donating to WGBH instead or they should announce they're not hiring him so people can stop getting heartburn.
UPDATE: Looks like the site was taken down. Oh, well. It was full of Mike Barnicle's greatest hits.
If it had a Web site, it would look like this.
I'd forgotten the Mandingo quote.
Via Amy Derjue.
WBUR general manager to Barnicle haters: It's been 10 years, people, give it a rest. But while he tells Dan Kennedy he thinks Boston needs Barnicle, he doesn't say whether he's offering Barnicle a job on 'BUR.
David Boeri interviews local voice impressario made good Billie West on the Boston accent and asks him why Hollywood can't get it right.
But don't cough or sneeze or you might miss me. David Boeri's Radio Boston show tonight is about violence in Boston, 9-10 p.m., 90.9 FM. Even if I weren't on it to talk about my obsession with violent crime statistics (about halfway into the show), I'd still recommend you listen - Boeri spent two weeks living on Norfolk Street in Dorchester (in an apartment with six locks on the door) and interviews both perpetrators and victims of crime. He also managed to keep me from babbling too much.
CommonHealth, by WBUR, will
track Massachusetts' attempt to cover the uninsured. The goal is to create a broad conversation about the new health care law and to cover more issues and updates than we can within the daily news cycle.
Via White Coat Notes.
Also see: Health Care for All's Healthy Blog.
Lis Riba wonders why the last two editions of "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me!" have been screwed up:
... [J]ust now (at about a quarter past), there was a moment of silence and then it suddenly reverted to a program from two weeks ago. ...
Chris Adrian has written for the "New Yorker," and a number of literary magazines. He just published his second novel, "The Children's Hospital" (McSweeney's, 2006). If you appreciate exceptional fiction and haven't heard of Adrian, you need to check out some of his work. First, you can learn more about the man (who lives in Cambridge, incidentally) worthy of all the buzz:
Right now I am listening to WBUR's broadcast of the president's news conference concerning North Korea and Iraq.
I try to listen objectively to his addresses to the nation but it is hard. I am always left with the image of a comedian who is just not very good but insists on trying to keep the audience's attention. I don't know that this is better than the typical image I have of him, which is as the teenage son who tries really hard to do adult things but ultimately needs his dad, usually in the form of Mike Brady, to bail him out.
Apparently we are working really hard in Iraq and while the news broadcasts are terrible, we have to stay the course. As to North Korea, while we are not pleased with what they have done, [nuclear testing] we will work with them diplomatically to resolve the issue.
Lis Riba wonders:
... I thought I remembered last week that they were saying that Friday morning they'd be holding a concentrated pledge drive on Friday morning only, but it's been going on for over a week now, and I've heard no sign of when it will end.
Who does a better job of summarizing the arts coverage in the morning papers? Joel Brown on HubArts or WBUR's revamped (i.e., Bill Marx-less) Attitude?
The WBUR art critic is getting canned; he writes his final 'BUR commentary:
This morning on WBUR, Bob Oakes read a brief item about some alligator found in Townsend that will eventually be shipped to Florida. He then added:
That's Florida Florida, not Florida, Massachusetts.
WBUR is firing long-time arts critic Bill Marx and shutting down its arts site, which Marx oversees and which features (featured) reviews, a blog, podcasts and an arts calendar.
No word on what will fill Marx's time. More time for headlines taken from the Globe and Herald?
Dan takes a look at Boston University's hiring of former Channel 5 general manager Paul La Camera to run WBUR, one of the nation's largest public radio stations:
... At this point in its history, WBUR needs a businessperson. La Camera happens to be a nice businessperson, which is a bonus.
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