Hip dude Bernie Sanders has a podcast now

[ehrnst]

While Hillary Clinton has spent the time since she lost her election going for woodland hikes and attending the inauguration of a man who said he’d put her in prison if he won, Bernie Sanders has had a lot more time to cope with the realization that he’s a loser and has been using that time to be fairly productive. Back in March, he agreed that Democrats would be better off if they started sacrificing their ideals by being open to political candidates who don’t care about gun control or abortion rights so much, and now he’s once again catering to the youthful following he inexplicably still has by launching his very own podcast.

Titled The Bernie Sanders Show, the series began as Facebook Live videos—because again, Sanders really has his finger on the pulse of youth culture, but also he thinks maybe people could budge on the whole pro-choice thing—and now they’re being repurposed into audio podcasts. Each episode features Sanders interviewing someone for about 30 minutes, and the three episodes that have been released so far include chats with Reverend William Barber, filmmaker Josh Fox, and noted science guy Bill Nye. He probably doesn’t ask them if they think we shouldn’t worry about gun control so much, but maybe that will come up in a future episode.

(The comments, for a change, are worth a read...)


http://www.avclub.com/article/hip-dude-bernie-sanders-has-podcast-now-253455

[stonecutter357]

1. is this the Hillary Clinton (Group)?

[ehrnst]

2. Yes. This article is about why the author thinks this podcast

Is rather ridiculous.

And most of the commenters agree.

It's also refreshing to see Bernie called out on his wanting Democrats to "be flexible" on abortion rights and gun safety.

[charlyvi]

3. The article does not show that he thinks the podcast is ridiculous.

In fact, he's plugging it in the last paragraph. The bit of Hillary snark that begins the article doesn't belong in this forum.

[ehrnst]

5. When one is reviewing something, they post a link to it.

That's expected.

That's not a "plug."

[radical noodle]

4. Love the comments

He would have beat DJT and Prince would be alive and there would be no mosquitos. Brilliant!

[ehrnst]

6. And the reviews have started coming in - and they are the opposite of raves.

Within a week of its release earlier this month, Bernie Sanders’ podcast had climbed to the number two slot on iTunes, just behind S-Town. (It’s now sitting at number six, still firmly in the top ten.) Which is to say: The Bernie Sanders Show, the product of a sitting U.S. senator’s Washington press office, is currently competing head-to-head in the same market as the likes of This American Life and TED Radio Hour. I’m not sure what that means, but I think it’s significant—certainly more significant than the show itself, which is almost as intellectually lazy as it is technically incompetent.
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Call me old school, but I think journalists should be interviewing politicians, and not the other way around. That’s what we do in liberal democracy. Anything else is Aló Presidente territory, and please, let’s not give Presidente Trump any ideas about starting a podcast himself.

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I come back to my fundamental bewilderment about the popularity of The Bernie Sanders Show. How is it that a political PR team—noticeably unschooled in the ways of audio production—is presently boxing with the likes of NPR at the top of the iTunes charts? “It’s a testament to how powerful the senator’s message is,” Miller-Lewis told me. “[Listeners] want a bold and progressive message.”

It may also be a testament to how much the current podcast listener demographic overlaps with Sanders’ core demo of educated young people. Or, it may be a testament to how much the iTunes chart algorithm is weighted to reflect new subscriptions, thus making recently-debuted shows appear competitive with established shows that actually get far more downloads (this is a widely-believed guess, Apple keeps its algorithm secret). Those subscribers who swarmed in on Sanders’ name alone might not keep with his show once they actually listen to it. Regardless, I think people who “want a bold and progressive message” should also want a better podcast than The Bernie Sanders Show.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2017/04/19/bernie_sanders_new_podcast_is_awful.html