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1970s, Music, Podcasts

Remembering Tom Petty (and Video Concert Hall)

by Soref • October 16, 2017 • 0 Comments

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 17:47 — 16.3MB) | Embed

In 1980, album oriented rock was high art, radio was king, and music videos were mere novelty items featured on an obscure cable program called Video Concert Hall. There was no better embodiment of these ideals at the time than Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers and their breakthrough album “Damn the Torpedoes,” particularly the single “Here Comes My Girl,” which stands out as a great love song as well as a breakout music video from before there was even MTV.

Podcasts

11. The Yellow Kid Arrives on the Scene

by Soref • September 15, 2017 • 0 Comments

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 48:49 — 44.7MB) | Embed

A century before Bart Simpson, another cleverly drawn little boy burst upon the scene. He caused such a sensation in his day that Yellow Journalism was named after HIM, not the other way around. He was the Yellow Kid.

1970s, Obituaries

Before There Was Steve Jobs, There Was Oscar Goldman

by Soref • September 2, 2017 • 0 Comments

Sometimes, life imitates art. Sometimes, reality is the most potent drug of all. Steve Jobs understood that. Oscar Goldman understood that.

Before there was Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, there was Oscar Goldman and Rudy Wells. Jobs was the ideas man, and Woz was the technician who could build the personal computer.

Oscar Goldman was the ideas man, and Rudy Wells was the physician who could rebuild Steve Austin.

East Bay, Miscellany

Back to School Berkeley

by Soref • August 28, 2017 • 2 Comments

It’s that special day of summer when Fall abruptly arrives at the doorstep of UC Berkeley. Kate and Allie have stepped out of the line and taken refuge. Kate’s right foot has been stripped of its sandal, and Allie is applying some kind of ointment before bandaging it up like a battle-tested field nurse. The sisterhood of Kate and Allie has already endured the first tribulation of the new year, and classes haven’t even started yet.

Podcasts

10. The Era of Yellow Journalism: Prologue

by Soref • July 12, 2017 • 0 Comments

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 36:32 — 34.2MB) | Embed

Hearst, Pulitzer, Jacksonian Democracy, the Fourth Estate. New York City in the 1890s. Tabloid media concentrates its power, and becomes unchecked and unbalanced.

Politics

Listen to the Audio. Is it Gianforte, or Melissa McCarthy doing Spicey again?

by Soref • May 25, 2017 • 0 Comments

Podcasts

9. Hearst v. Pulitzer: Rise of the Daily Newspaper

by Soref • May 19, 2017 • 1 Comment

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 44:31 — 40.8MB) | Embed

Media wars are nothing new. In the 1880s modern journalism began under the auspices of Joseph Pulitzer. By the 1890s, “ratings wars” between Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst pushed newspaper publishers into increasingly reckless territory. This is where our modern media culture begins. Listen in on this episode of the TV Room as we revisit the heyday of Pulitzer’s New York media empire, when he was able to use his newspapers to confront the excesses of the Gilded Age and help usher in the reforms of the Progressive Era that followed. We then set the table for Pulitzer’s feud with William Randolph Hearst, which would expose the dark side of the power of the press.

Podcasts

8. The 19th Century: Our Modern World Begins

by Soref • March 3, 2017 • 0 Comments

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 41:27 — 38.0MB) | Embed

In 1800, nothing went faster than a sailing ship or a team of horses, not even communiques. Electronics did not exist and machines were unknown. By 1900, you could talk by phone to different cities, take a subway to go see a movie, and drive a car. Millions of people were on the move, leaving the old world behind and going to where the jobs were, in factories with machines that ran around the clock.
Their grandparents lived and died in a world that hadn’t changed much since Medieval times, and their grandchildren would grow up with rock n roll and television. The modern age begins with them, the people of the Nineteenth Century. They are the subject of this episode of the TV Room.

Podcasts, Politics, The Age of Television

7. The First Information Age: From Telegraph to Television.

by Soref • February 7, 2017 • 1 Comment

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:19 — 31.2MB) | Embed

Did the upset election of 2016 mark the death knell of journalism? From telegraph to television, newspapers to newscasters, telegraph cables to cable news, how Morse Code was the binary code that started the first Information Age, and why cable TV news might be the end.

Remembering Tom Petty (and Video Concert Hall)

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11. The Yellow Kid Arrives on the Scene

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Before There Was Steve Jobs, There Was Oscar Goldman

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Back to School Berkeley

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10. The Era of Yellow Journalism: Prologue

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Listen to the Audio. Is it Gianforte, or Melissa McCarthy doing Spicey again?

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9. Hearst v. Pulitzer: Rise of the Daily Newspaper

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8. The 19th Century: Our Modern World Begins

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7. The First Information Age: From Telegraph to Television.

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