Recently on Twitter, the One True B!x commented that he wished he could listen to Radiolab‘s content without the “highly annoying storytelling style,” an opinion I think a lot of people share. But I actually really like the show’s conversational format—it’s a constant reminder of the limitations of reporting, that history is made up of loads of peoples’ different perspectives all jumbled together. Plus, the integration of sounds and music is really impressive. The Atlantic‘s Alex Madrigal feels the same way, and he takes it a step further with a piece today about how Radiolab is “changing the sound of the radio”:

[O]ur cultural expectations of radio — funneled through different technological listening devices — are changing. It may be broadcast over traditional airwaves, but it’s webby. It feels interactive and interrogative rather than narrowly investigative. [Jad] Abumrad and [Robert] Krulwich aren’t coming from on high, but right there with the listener adventuring through the story.

Radiolab is actually post-blog and post-livestream. It’s not aping the oratory of old or the raggedness of the new. It’s a hybrid that takes lessons from the past, recent and deep.

I’m not sure I buy this “Radiolab is shifting the paradigm” stuff—the show’s been around for a while, after all, and I think these observations about storytelling style equally apply to This American Life (did everyone listen to the Mike Daisey episode, BTW?). But it is interesting to consider lines of influence in the podcasting boom—the Memory Palace can feel at times like a little slice of Radiolab, for example.

My ulterior motive for posting about Radiolab is this: If you haven’t listened to their Patient Zero episode—which explores the story of Typhoid Mary, follows the AIDS virus to its source, and traces the surprisingly tragic history of the high-five—go do it. It is an incredible piece of research and storytelling.

Alison Hallett served nobly as the Mercury's arts editor from 2008-2014. Her proud legacy lives on.

9 replies on “The <i>Atlantic</i> on How <i>Radiolab</i> Is “Changing the Sound of the Radio””

  1. I don’t find Radiolab annoying at all. In fact, there’s a precious, modulated tone of voice (literally) to TAL that can grate on me.

    I was about to mention 99% Invisible as another innovative (but not really paradigm-shifting) podcast that I’ve been listening to for a while but I realized Radiolab just did a whole show on it.

    Been backed up, look forward to Patient Zero.

  2. They do very good stories, but put me in the camp that hates their presentation. It’s overproduced and pointlessly noisy, and the clearly-scripted “spontaneous banter” between the hosts is excruciating.

    Jumbling crap together and calling it freshly postmodern isn’t “new”. It’s now decades old.

  3. I enjoy the content and most of the presentation, but their voices are so… I dunno, effeminate? I’m not sure how to describe to describe it, but both hosts (Krulwich especially) just sound too… gentle… or something. So much so, that it sort of seems contrived. It almost feels like they’re trying to report their stories to unreasonably timid children or something.

  5. I don’t think Radiolab’s “spontaneous banter” is scripted (aside from, you know, the actual script), it’s just edited to hell so that an investigative narrative is formed — rather than a typical interview/storytelling format like This American Life (which I often find quite cloying and condescending in tone).

    The fact that they have some seriously amazing stories helps, too. This is an all time favorite, get your hanky ready:

    http://www.radiolab.org/2011/jan/25/findin&hellip;

  7. There was a better piece about Radio Lab done in NYT Magazine last year; it answers many of the questions posed here. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/10/magazine&hellip;

    The reason I love Radio Lab is that it does away with the omnipotent narrator. Listening to RL is more than just sopping up information, it seeks to engaged you in a very visceral way. It’s not didactic like news radio or sentimental the way the Moth/TAL is.

    I also don’t get the sense that their personas are an affectation or insincere. I think it would be too difficult to feign that level of curiosity for so long.

  8. I hated Radiolab’s editing at first, but now I’m into it.
    I also stopped listening to This American Life a few years ago because every episode has the same arc. Ira Glass stutters over a tiny detail that ends up BEING THE MOST DRAMATIC MOMENT OF THIS PERSON’S LIFE. And he finishes his sentence right at the end of the build of that Clem Snide instrumental song they always use and then DRAMA ENSUES!!!
    But yeah, Radiolab is totally changing the sound of radio. The story about movie trailers from Morning Edition or whatever that was posted recently on blogtown reeked of Radiolab-esque editing.

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