Podcasts about world events?

June 19, 2012 2:42 PM

I would like to be more informed about world events. Can you recommend some podcasts that I can listen to? I'd like to have a variety of perspectives (both politically and geographically) but the main thing is that they are BOTH entertaining and informative.

Some podcasts I already listen to and enjoy:

NPR Planet Money
Radiolab
99% Invisible
Studio 360
Slate Culture Gabfest
To the Best of Our Knowledge

...so anything in that sort of style, but not only from the US.
I don't like listening to people arguing, and ideally there would be both male and female voices, but I'm pretty open to whatever you suggest.

posted by exceptinsects to society & culture (9 answers total)

From Our Own Correspondent is one of my favorites. All of the segments, about five to an episode, are personal views, some of the reports are not related to current events (a return to Bosnia, a trip to the town near Auschwitz where the correspondent's grandfather was a tailor), but many other are very much related to the big topical stories (Egypt, Libya, Greece, etc.).
posted by Quinbus Flestrin at 3:18 PM on June 19, 2012

From the BBC World Server Newshour. It's not really entertaining as such but they tend to have one or two lighter pieces in each hour.

Also from the BBC Global News. It's shorter than 'Newshour' and, as far as I know, they don't do the lighter pieces.
posted by southof40 at 3:19 PM on June 19, 2012

I'd recommend PRI's The World, a daily newscast on happenings all around the glove, with a good balance of hard news and soft pieces.
posted by phredgreen at 3:33 PM on June 19, 2012 [2 favorites]

Oh, and one other thing, I don't know if there are many like this but I'd prefer something like a weekly digest rather than a daily news hour.
posted by exceptinsects at 5:18 PM on June 19, 2012

Perhaps you might like the Irish national broadcaster's weekly news digest, RTE's playback. (that's a link to a list of recent episodes --- it culls from hard news, soft news, and newsmagazine type chat shows. You can get it in iTunes as well.)
posted by Diablevert at 6:43 PM on June 19, 2012

On The Media is worth a look... weekly, male & female hosts, good production value.
posted by jorlyfish at 8:16 PM on June 19, 2012

I can't vouch for their quality, because I only just discovered them, but Voice of America has podcasts galore, including weeklies

Also, "From Our Own Correspondent" is excellent-- I actually get it on the radio as my NPR station runs BBC content overnight, and I get up at an ungodly hour. It's a spiritual successor to the outstanding Alistair Cooke series, "Letter from America," which ran from 1946 to 2004.

I also listen to The World on my pubradio station on the weekends-- excellent program.
posted by Sunburnt at 8:56 PM on June 19, 2012

The Bugle is a comedy podcast, but does a relatively good job of summarizing the week's events before it satirizes them mercilessly - it's a bit like The Daily Show as a podcast (almost literally, as one of the cohosts is John Oliver).
posted by Mchelly at 9:08 PM on June 19, 2012

If your French is up to it, you might enjoy Grand Reportage, a quasi-daily documentary podcast (~30 min) where reporters produce in-depth reports on all sorts of interesting places around the world (many of them ignored by American media)

RFI - Grand reportage
RSS Feed: http://www.rfi.fr/radiofr/podcast/Podcast_REPOR.asp

Here's a selection of recent podcasts:

The Breivik Trial (rebroadcast): Norway after the July 22 massacre
A l’heure du proces d’Anders Behring Breivik : la Norvege apres le massacre du 22 juillet 2011 (rediffusion) - 19/06/2012

India: Unethical Pharmaceutical Trials
Inde : enquete sur des essais cliniques sans ethique (rediffusion) - 18/06/2012

Burma: Have Things Really Changed After Government Reforms?
Birmanie : Dawei, la zone industrielle de tous les exces - 15/06/2012

Ten Years Ago, White Farmers Were Chased Off Their Land. How Do The New Farmers Live?
Reforme agraire : de quelle couleur est la terre du Zimbabwe ? - 13/06/2012

Amazonian Indians Play Baroque Music
Quand les Indiens d’Amazonie jouent du baroque - 12/06/2012

Greek Hospitals, Squeezed Between Corruption And The Economic Crisis
Les hopitaux grecs, dans l’etau de la crise et de la corruption - 11/06/2012

France: Hidden Problems Of The Police
France : les maux caches des policiers - 06/06/2012

The Forgotten Rebels Of The Blue Nile
Les rebelles oublies du Nil Bleu - 05/06/2012

The Day That Brazzaville Exploded (several hundred Congolese died in March when an arms depot in the capital exploded)
Ce jour ou Brazzaville a explose - 04/06/2012
posted by juifenasie at 7:19 AM on June 20, 2012