On Point | Podcast

Updated again - Jack Beatty is national treasure and he and Meghna have great chemistry. I could listen to him opine about any topic. Kudos to the team for the superlative Jackpod. Updating my review after the new format: I’m a native Bostonian and have been a loyal listener for two decades. Unfortunately, I think the recent rethink of On Point is not working. The audio diaries duplicate content within the episode and I’m already tired of the format and delete them unlistened. I also am now skipping whole episodes. The new narrative style, pre-recorded content, and lame music is not working. Bring back the Friday News Roundup! Getting more of Jack Beatty is a pleasure, as is Meghna’s great interviewing, but overall I’m disappointed with the new On Point. We don’t need another This American Life. I know budgets are tight due to the pandemic, but it doesn’t make sense to screw up something that works. Kudos to Meghna and the On Point team for their thoughtful, nuanced, intellectually-rigorous coverage of news and culture. I’m more than a bit confused by the sharply negative reviews here saying that On Point and NPR in general is partisan; if anything, I find that public radio has tried too hard to present both sides of the story since the 2016 election, sometimes to the point of having a conspiracy-theorist crackpot face off with a professor or scientist or other expert. That said, I find Meghna to be eminently balanced in her interviewing.

Great insights, reasonable and balanced coverage. If these things strike a chord with you this podcast is for you. The Jackpod alone is worth the subscription! Tune in and tune up your Yankee Doodle noodle

Propublica just broke this story of their investigation: Trump is using his media company to allow rich donors to buy a piece of Trump and reap the benefits in the form of government contracts and tax breaks if he gets elected again. The investigative reporting connects the new “Trump TV” to a streaming technology company in Melania’s home country (Slovenia) and to a rich Republican donor who had made millions off his relationship with Trump already.

In the middle of listening to the Jackpod with Howard on as a guest and I had to stop in the middle to write this. I could not agree more with what Howard says about wages. Media always talks about wage growth in the recent years, and I TOTALLY disagree. My wage has not moved in 5 years. In 5 years, my “raise” has averaged at 2.8% (with surpassing expectations performance), which cannot touch inflation. So, I am now making less today than I was 5 years ago. Everybody says that when there are fewer workers, companies will be forced to increase wages. Well, they do, but only for middle managers and up, which skews the average and median. Meanwhile, production requirements go up, stress goes up, threats of layoffs, quiet firing, and 100 people doing the work 150 used to do with no compensation. Media almost always uses the example of minimum wage to measure low wage work, but there is a HUGE swath of the workforce that is stuck in the $50k - $60k range and can’t move up because all the raises and bonuses are going to those making over $200k. Also, the $50k - $60k folks are salary, so increased productivity comes at the cost of unpaid overtime. Howard notes that companies will not feel compelled to increase wages unless they are forced by regulation. I have been shouting that from the rooftops for years to deaf ears. And today Howard spoke for me on public radio. Thank you, Howard, thank you Jack, and thank you Mehgna.