To the Best of Our Knowledge 

PROMO       4/6/2008     "Dumbing Down/Smartening Up"
*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 (Ja-
KOH-bee) joins us to talk about her book, "The Age of American
Unreason." Also, we'll find out how the Internet is killing our culture.

PROGRAM RUNDOWN:  "Dumbing Down/Smartening Up"

0:00 - 15:45        SEGMENT 1: (15:46)
            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 One Outcue:  "...PRI - Public Radio
            International."

15:46 - 16:15  LOCAL OPTION with music bed (:29)

16:16 - 39:29       SEGMENT 2: (23:15)
            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 Two Outcue:  "...PRI - Public Radio
            International."

39:30 - 39:59       LOCAL OPTION with music bed (:29)

40:00 - 53:00       SEGMENT 3: (13:00)
            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.
                    
            Segment Three Outcue: PRI Audio Logo


For a copy of this hour, call 1-800-747-7444, and ask for program number
4-6-A.