Tagged: Media

A special broadcast of NPR's Talk of the Nation: Science Friday host Ira Flatow, recorded in front of a live audience at the University of New Hampshire in Durham.

Mike Huckabee fell short four years ago in his quest to become the Republican presidential nominee. As of this week, the former Arkansas governor has a new job: national radio talk show host.

The Mike Huckabee Show started Monday with an anticipatory flourish.

"Welcome to the community of conversation. You've just made a right turn, and you've arrived at the corner of conservatism and common sense," he said. "In this show, we're going to be confronting the issues — not the listeners."

Huckabee is no media novice. He has been on the radio since he was a teenager. And that introduction was no accident, as he says when he stops by NPR's bureau in New York.

"Paintballing With Hezbollah Is The Path Straight To Their Hearts," says the headline at the Vice.com newssite.

In a quest to get to better know members of the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon, four Western journalists and a former U.S. Army Ranger last year arranged to play paintball in Beirut with some men who said they were among the group's fighters.

In his account of the experience, journalist Mitchell Prothero writes that "my motivation for brokering the match was largely driven by the simple journalistic need to better understand the group."

Hearing about golf these past couple of years has turned into some sort of dual universe. On the one hand there is the real world, like: "Smith and Jones Tied for Lead in Cat Food Open."

But then, in more detail, the larger shadow story reads: "Tiger's Putter Falters, Trails By 12 Strokes."

Golf has become like fantasy football or Rotisserie Baseball. Only, imagine if everybody has the same guy — Tiger Woods — on his team. No other golfers seem to exist, except possibly The Ghost of Jack Nicklaus.

This is what I call "The Dreaded Mike Tyson Syndrome," which is what happened to boxing when Tyson couldn't win anymore but yet continued to dominate news of boxing.

When a San Francisco writer found her boyfriend's face on a dating site, it wasn't a sign of trouble in their relationship.

Occupy candidates. The Law Booth. Gay media gone straight. A social history of White Bread. Stunning finds in basketball research. And Taylor's rundown of superhero super-science.

The Logo network is adding programs that sound a lot like what's on a lot of "straight" channels. Is gay simply too mainstream to be called a niche anymore?

Social media meets old media:

Saying that he's convinced "the demand for long-form, quality journalism is strong in our country," Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes tells NPR's Steve Inskeep that he's buying The New Republic.

That's a magazine, as Steve says, which is four times older than its new owner. Hughes is 28.

"People still want independent, rigorous reporting and The New Republic has been a place where that happens," Hughes tells Steve during a conversation that's to be broadcast on Friday's Morning Edition.