Pod-Alization: Freakonomics Comes Clean; Brooklyn Podcast Festival; Football & Race

 Freakonomics airs an episode about trying to clean up the world

Freakonomics recently introduced a miniseries podcast called The Economics Of Everyday Things. In the first episode: Gas stations. When gas prices skyrocket, do station owners get a windfall? And where do their profits really come from? This episode was enlightening and counterintuitive in some of its conclusions.  

The podcast hosted is Zachary Crockett, who was a staff writer at Vox.com and Priceonomics. 

In the fourth and final episode of the miniseries (although Freakonomics left the door open to more shows), host Crockett introduces us to an organization, Clean The World, that is trying to make the world a better place.  

Clean The World had a novel idea. Collect used hotel soaps that had been partially used by hotel guests that are usually thrown away. By inventing a process that mixes all those different kinds of soaps and then using a "soap whisperer" to successfully create the right balance to make new soap bars. The organization distributes these newly constituted soap bars to people in need of help with hygiene and disease prevention.

This is especially commendable since our nation suffers from an empathy deficit for the disabled, disadvantaged, and downtrodden. Sadly, an "I got mine, so it's your fault if you didn't get yours" attitude pervades too many crevasses in our society. Some media outlets even pitch the fiction that the privileged in society are under assault from the disadvantaged.

Check out The Economics Of Everyday Things here. 

On Air Fest Hits Brooklyn next week (Feb. 23-25)

From Feb 23-25 at Brooklyn's Wythe Hotel, On Air Fest is hailed as "the Coachella of podcast festivals." The festival has just announced its next series of programming updates and additions.  

 

Fast Company will now welcome a special session from Audible and Higher Ground Audio, on the making of Michelle Obama: The Light Podcast.  Ahead of its March 7th release, the early preview of Michelle Obama: The Light Podcast will feature behind-the-scenes anecdotes about the inaugural project from Audible and Higher Ground's multi-year partnership, focused on producing content that reflects the companies' shared mission of telling meaningful stories to elevate diverse voices and experiences.

Also at On Air Fest, attendees will witness the debut of On Air: The Podcast Experience. The first-of-its-kind, interactive exhibit invites fans to step into their favorite shows and storytellers, as a floor of multiple rooms at the Wythe Hotel is taken over by the worlds of My Favorite Murder, On Being, Radiolab, Sonos' Object of Sound with host Hanif Abdurraqib, and The Heart. The immersive installation will run from February 23-26 and is open to all festival attendees and independent ticket holders.

 

NYT's Between The Lines Podcast premieres about the history of football and race

How has America’s biggest game failed to grapple with America’s biggest issue?

“Between the Lines,” a new podcast series from The Athletic, dives into what it means to be Black in the N.F.L. and explains how race impacts each level of the league’s organization chart.

Through a series of interviews with current and former NFL players, coaches, executives and league officials, host Tashan Reed takes listeners through the NFL’s past and present issues with race, as well as the changes that may be possible to make America’s biggest game more equitable.

From coaches who have quit their jobs due to a lack of advancement to players who have struggled to speak out for fear of being cut, Reed takes listeners through the N.F.L.’s past and present issues with race, as well as the changes that may be possible to make America’s biggest game more equitable.

“The N.F.L. is far from the only entity with a diversity problem — the media industry is another prime example — but it’s one of the most successful, prominent and influential businesses in America,” said Tashan Reed. “If it allows the issue to persist, it’s culpable in helping maintain the structure of systemic racism, discrimination, and oppression that’s held this country in its grip for centuries. But if it’s able to cultivate some sustained progress, it could become a beacon for change. This series was born and created over the course of 16 months from a desire to see the latter path come to fruition.”

Episode one of Between the Lines reviews the major moments in the 100-year history of race and activism in football, as well as the culture surrounding the sport. Voices in this episode include Doug Williams, Bomani Jones, Jim Trotter, Marcus Thompson II, Devin McCourty, and two of the originators of the Rooney Rule - Cyrus Mehri and Dr. Janice Madden.

The first episode of “Between the Lines” is available now, and new episodes drop weekly on Tuesdays.