In a search for the truth, eyewitness accounts should basically be ignored. Memory is terrible, and even his memory at the time seems to lack a true smoking gun. As of now, hearing a podcast dismiss an eyewitness account is a welcome change from the "true crime" reliance on them.

Besides that, it seems that both sides had a different expectation on what the topic was going to be. It's understandable that Mr. Yang felt hurt afterwards, and it also makes sense that the interviewers would get frustrated in that situation. A good solution would have been to find a platform for Mr. Yang's story after the miscommunication was realized, but the event seems to have went ugly fast.

Interesting read! It however does not shock me. That episode is, with your context, as much about truth for them (radiolab, living in US and trying to understand how they could produce chemical weapons) as about the truth of the Hmong. What they're living is a world where formal education says the truth. It would be nice if they would admit that a bit, and be more respectful to the interviewee.

I think this is probs my true of all media. Decent enough "info"tainment, but completely befallen to the presenters biases, shot-comings, and ignorance.

I doubt that unbiased, accurate journalism can exist outside of extremely narrow fields (Even then, who knows)

Not only was that a great story about mythology and fake tales that comes from war, it humanised and told the story of the Hmong.

What is the point exactly? Fox news is telling the Hmong's story better?

To be fair the story is amended, so you really need to link the original since it might have been worse?

[edit] Link to her story - https://apexexpress.wordpress.com/2013/02/26/22813-kao-kalia... (about 10mins in)

To be clear Yellow Rain is fake, this is an incredibly important story to be told. To be a westerner and believe in the Yellow Rain is nuts and should be laughed at, but how does one talk to a Hmong person about it?

Post WMD's, we still have Vietnam using Agent Orange in known propaganda, we know Rohingya refugees are lying at times but we don't know how much. It's important stuff.

How they treated the interviewee(The Uncle) was shitty, especially in the earlier version but at the end of the day this interview talked more about the Hmong story than the other shitty news outlets like Huffpo and created more thought.

It's not just you. I'm reminded of antisemitism in the conspiratorial way the descriptor is being used and how the Reality Distortion Field extends that that White Males/Jews are the cause of every problem.

The fact is that many media people are racists and these people and their fellow travelers don't like it being pointed out that they are being hypocrites. Some of them think being white males themselves is an exemption from criticism - except there are so many historical examples of self hating peoples who supported the people attacking them that it would make your head spin. I remember Scott Alexander, usually a level headed person as you could hope to find - unsettled by what he was reading about the Jewish refugees who ended up in England during WWII - many of whom were praising Adolf with full awareness of what was happening. There's not much to stop self hate going from signalling to malignant.

If you look around you won't notice many people speaking out against it, that's because it's mainstreamed, it is the we've always been at war with Eurasia. These people are very confident and very stupid.

The moderation mechanism on websites such as this feeds back into this echo chamber too, because I'm aware that every thing I say will be under exacting scrutiny but I'll regularly see violations of the rules I'd never get away with. Rule violations have to be extraordinary to reach a moderators's inbox if they are in the general spirit of the group believes.

I want so badly to like Radiolab, but honestly I feel like it's produced by ADHD'ers, for ADHD'ers.

Hell, I feel like it gives me ADHD just listening.

I find the style patronising to the point of irritation. Overly edited, repeatedly cutting to the hosts instead of letting the subject just damn well speak and letting the listeners damn well think for themselves. Maybe I am overly critical but I listen to a wide spectrum of podcast content and their style really gets my back up to the point I gave up listening recently.

TAL tends to deal with a more specific topic or story compared to Radiolab, which deals with an idea that has many smaller bits. The editing reflects this. I find it fine to listen to.

Impossible to listen to. I can’t stand it. Their series on the Supreme Court, More Perfect, is slightly better and just manageable. But I couldn’t finish one episode of their flagship show.

I’m relieved to hear I’m not the only one, to be honest. I thought I was going mad. Or worse: old.

I totally agree. I feel like the audio editor is having fun for their own sake, and it takes away from the show for me. It makes the listening experience super irritating, despite the fact that I often find the content interesting.

I quite like it. I like the interleaving.

My favorite is they figured out the most infuriating amount of dead air it takes to get you to check if the headphones disconnected.

I personally love both styles.

have you listened to a more recent episode (eg this one)? the early episodes sounded like avant-garde sound experiments but the newer ones are much closer to TAL-style editing, just more people talking. they've acknowledged this criticism at least once in an episode.