Tankestörningar

Har lite tankar på att sparka igång en podcast med liknande inriktning som The Pod Delusion; en skeptiskt humanistisk och nördigt intellektuell eller humanistiskt nördig och intellektuellt skeptisk, möjligen humanistiskt intellektuell och nördigt skeptisk. Äh fan, tänk på fyra ledord: skeptisk, humanistisk, intellektuell och nördig.

Upplägget skulle vara att till varje avsnitt plocka in fem till tio bidrag på runt fem till tio minuter från en mer eller mindre fast stab av deltagare. Utgivning riktar jag in mig på var fjortonde dag i början. Förhoppningsvis kommer det att vara så pass många knutna till projektet att det räcker att bidra med inslag till kanske vart annat eller vart tredje program. Men låt inte det avskräcka, jag kommer med glädje ta emot bidrag även oftare eller mer sporadiskt.

Inriktningen på inslagen kan röra sig om bland annat, men inte nödvändigtvis begränsat till, vetenskap, intervjuer, samhällsdebatter, teknik, livsåskådning. Och jag ser gärna deltagare från skeptiker- och humanismrörelsen, från samhälls- och teknikdebatten, från livsåskådnings- och ateistsynvikel. Kort sagt en bred och intressant blandning.

Låter det intressant, så hör av er (olle(på)funkis.org eller @ollesvensk), antingen om ni vill vara med och bidra med inslag eller att rodda podcasten. Till dess läs gärna hur James O’Malley presenterade The Pod Delusion på sin blog (så slipper jag försöka formulera om allt eller bli anklagad för plagiat):

Get Involved

Had a listen to The Pod Delusion and want to get involved yourself? We’re always looking for new people to add to our roster of reporters – after all, the show is a collaborative effort and it is the wide range of contributions that make it what it is.

Perhaps the best way of describing the ‘philosophy’ behind the show, if you’ll excuse the pretentiousness, is by taking a look at the original pitch I wrote on my blog describing what I’d like the podcast to do. Cast your mind back to September 2009…

I’ve got an idea for a podcast in my head, but I need your help to turn it into something slightly more tangible!

The idea in my head is in a podcast that’s broadly lefty/liberal/skeptic/atheistic/geeky – essentially Guardianista in philosophy, or maybe sharing values with Little Atoms if it were produced by someone infinitely less educated. The remit of the podcast would simply be “things that are interesting”, and I’d hope the tone would be somewhere between satirical, sarcastic and light hearted – I struggle at the best of times to sound sincere, so attempting to do anything 100% “worthy” is perhaps beyond my abilities.

Obviously, like everyone I have limited time, and I’d like to do it with the help of a team of people who are better qualified and more knowledgeable on “interesting” topics than myself, so the format for the podcast I envisage is as follows:

– An introductory monologue by myself, where I introduce what is coming up and talk about something vaguely topical

– Then packages submitted by contributors of between 3 and 7 minutes long each.

– The podcast will last approximately 15-20 minutes, at least initially. And will be a weekly affair.

I’d like to have a pool of contributors large enough to not have to try and coerce people in submitting something new every week – like how the news has different reporters and they’re not necessarily all on TV every day.

To give an example on the sort of topics contributors could cover, things like maybe something about the BCA and Simon Singh, the BNP being twats about something, exposing why Littlejohn is being a hypocrite this week, that sort of thing. Pitch me anything, basically. Vaguely topical, but it doesn’t have to be amazingly topical.

Editorially, I have no concerns about bias. As much as we deride Fox News, and the American networks, the fact they have people passionately arguing for a point of view makes them infinitely more compulsive viewing than the dull BBC. So if contributors want to really go after something or someone, I’m all for it, as long as I won’t get sued.

Contributors could submit their reports in any style they wish – an “essay” (a la From Our Own Correspondent), a debate, a stand-up routine, an interview with someone relevant, hell, even in the form of song would be amazing. All that you’ll need to be able to do to contribute is have some means of getting audio on to the internet and to me. So you’ll need a microphone – or if you’ve got an iPhone or Smartphone, download the ipadio app from the appstore and use that!

If this gets going I think I’d set up a mailing list for contributors so that at the start of the editorial cycle contributors could e-mail in and pitch ideas for stories and they can be discussed to make sure there’s no duplicates – and I could perhaps suggest stories it could be interesting to cover – and then as the week goes on and reports are sent in, I’ll compile them into the final podcast, before uploading it on whatever day we decide to publish it on.

Does this idea interest you? Would you like to be a contributor? No need to commit at the moment – I just want to collect the details of people who would be interested! If you’re trying to get into journalism, are a blogger, or just want an excuse to listen to the sound of your own voice (like I do), then this could be another string to add to your bow.

So drop me an e-mail on james (at) jamesomalley (dot) co (dot) uk and let me know who you are, and maybe what sort of thing you’d like to do if you can think that far ahead! Contact details (e-mail, Twitter, etc) would be useful too.

I reserve the right to abandon this with no shame if nobody is interested and/or I’m too busy to produce this.