A Five Part Series from TTBOOK!

Public Radio International

Wisconsin Public Radio

DUMBING DOWN, SMARTENING UP

Program 08-04-06-A

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Are Americans dumbing down instead of smartening up? Many surveys say yes. According to a 2006 National Geographic-Roper survey, nearly half of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 don't think it's necessary to know the location of other countries in which important news is being made. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, Susan Jacoby joins us to talk about her book, "The Age of American Unreason." Also, we'll find out how the Internet is killing our culture.

SEGMENT 1:

Susan Jacoby is the author of "The Age of American Unreason." She talks with Steve Paulson and gives several frightening examples of the way American culture is dumbing itself down, and how poorly educated many American college graduates are.

SEGMENT 2:

Satirist George Saunders has been a Guggenheim Fellow and received a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant." For his essay on the dumbing down on American media, he created "Megaphone Guy." Saunders reads from his essay, "The Braindead Megaphone" and talks with Jim Fleming about Megaphone Guy and his effect on the media. Also, Chris Bachelder is the author of "Bear v. Shark: The Novel." He reads excerpts and talks with Anne Strainchamps about the wacky future world he's created. And Al Franken and Katherine Lanpher present "The Audio Crawl."

SEGMENT 3:

Andrew Keen is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur. He's also the author of "The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing Our Culture." Keen regrets the absence of any editorial filtering or even author attribution on web sites like Wikipedia. He tells Jim Fleming that he thinks users have to have some way of intelligently assessing information. Just making it available isn't enough.

CD copies are available at 1-800-747-7444. Ask for program number 08-04-06-A.

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Books:

Susan Jacoby, The Age of American Unreason (Pantheon Books)
Andrew Keen, The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet Is Killing Our Culture (Doubleday)
George Saunders, The Braindead Megaphone: Essays (Riverhead Books)
Chris Bachelder, Bear v. Shark: The Novel (Scribner/Simon and Schuster)

WEBSITES:
-- Susan Jacoby
http://www.susanjacoby.com/
-- George Saunders
http://www.saunderssaunderssaunders.com/
-- Chris Bachelder
http://www.chrisbachelder.com/
-- Andrew Keen
http://andrewkeen.typepad.com/

CLIPS:
-- "The Audio Crawl"/Al Franken
(Al Franken, Katherine Lanpher, Billy Kimball)
from the CD, "The O'Franken Factor Factor: The Very Best of the
O'Franken Factor (Air America Radio)" (Artemis Records)
http://www.alfranken.com/

Music:
-- "(What A) Wonderful World"/Sam Cooke
from the CD, "The Best of Sam Cooke" (RCA/Legacy)
http://www.samcooke.com/
-- "Manhattan Minuet"/Raymond Scott
from the CD, "Reckless Nights and Turkish Twilights" (Columbia)
http://www.raymondscott.com/
-- "(Baby, Baby) Can I Invade Your Country"/Sparks
from the CD, "Hello Young Lovers" (In the Red Records)
http://www.allsparks.com/
http://www.intheredrecords.com/pages/sparks.html
-- "Sparks in the Dark (Part Two)"/Sparks
from the CD, "Pulling Rabbits Out Of A Hat" (Oglio Records)
http://www.allsparks.com/
http://www.oglio.com/webs/pages/home.shtml
-- "Hillbillies From Outerspace"/The Vaughan Brothers
from the CD, "Family Style" (Epic/Associated)

Distribution dates: week of 04/06/2008 - hour 1

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Questions and comments can be addressed to: flemingj@wpr.org

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