Content Tagged āpodcastingā
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āNo Agendaā Is Over
On No Agenda 1912, Adam Curry has just announced that he will be quitting the show after the episode on 29 October and thus completing 19 years of the podcast. After the death of John C. Dvorak, this spells the end of No Agenda, at least for me. Adam has hinted that the show might continue in some way, with other hosts, but that is definitely not for me.
Adam explained on the episode that he really hadnāt been feeling No Agenda for a while now, since he became religious and actively practicing the Christian faith, and that he simply hadnāt managed to bring that up to John before his heart attack. I think there is definitely some truth to that and everyone who was a regular listener to the show probably detected some of this change in Adam. He says he now wants to concentrate on his ākingdom workā, which I guess means religious evangelising, and that this is why heās quitting the show. But I do feel a big pat of that decision might also be that the listenership numbers have obviously been in a steep decline ever since John died.
No Agenda just didnāt work without John C. Dvorakās singular brand of irreverant criticism and acerbic wit and I think many listeners worked this out and stopped listening. I certainly only tuned into the show a few times, and only for short parts of episodes, since Johnās passing. Of course, for me personally, it also didnāt help that Adam kept leaning into his newfound Christian faith bullshit and his pro-AI stance. I already vehemently disagreed with him on his very pro-Trump attitude, but this just made it so that I couldnāt logically follow most of his reasoning anymore. And since there was no John there to vehemently push back on some of this stuff and bring another perspective, No Agenda died for me with John. And I guess now itās finally officially been declared dead.
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My Last Email from Dvorak
While looking though my email archive this morning, I found this email by John C. Dvorak, where he replied to me sending some information to the No Agenda show. This was less than a month before his death. That signature made me laugh every time I saw it. What a character! šš
SENT from my bakelite rotary phone
one letter at a time
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John C. Dvorak Has Passed Away
I just learned that John C. Dvorak has died on Monday. JCD had a heart attack earlier this year, but he was doing much better and I just listened to the last No Agenda episode he recorded on Sunday (episode 1887) this morning, so this comes as a bit of a shock.
I will miss John very much. He was one of my journalistic heroes. He almost single-handedly alerted me to all the bullshit that goes on in Silicon Valley and that it wasnāt an exception, but rather the standard modus operandi in that part of the tech industry. Calculated to mislead the public by generating a lot of overblown hype to sell more product. John stood up to this crap for decades. He was one of the journalists who, through his work, encouraged my natural scepticism and my inherent tendency to always ask questions when everyone around me would just accept something. He taught me that this is a good quality in a journalist ā and every other human being for that matter ā one that we want to encourage, rather than an annoyance that is to be chastised.
We need more people like John C. Dvorak in this world, not less. People who want to get at the truth of the matter, rather than placate other peopleās emotional or financial needs. His tendency to always ask the next question, to never accept conventional āwisdomā and to just be the one stubborn old man in the room (even when he was quite young) who will always take the more unpopular ā but probably closer to the truth ā side of the argument will be sorely missed. This is a bad day. For tech journalism and for the world at large. Goodbye, John. I know that, wherever you are now, the powers that be over there are not to be envied. Give āem hell!
John C. Dvorak (1946 - 2026) ā journalist, podcaster, curmudgeon (Photo: No Agenda)
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Radio Nowhere
Photo by Jay HeikeToday, Iāve launched a new weekly podcast I call Radio Nowhere. What is it about, you ask? Let me quote right from the website:
RADIO NOWHERE is a political podcast that promotes free thought and independent research. The show is hosted by tech journalist and writer Fabian A. Scherschel. It is recorded in his home studio and on the road and released weekly.
Loosely inspired by such shows as No Agenda and The Daily, I pick a political topic every week to discuss in-depth. Could be anything really. Something that happened recently, something from the past few years or a development thatās been going on for a while. If itās interesting to me, I will probably talk about it at some point. The first episode deals with Trumpās Ukraine phone call and the impeachment inquiry it has launched.
As is always the case with my shows, you get ample show notes and access to all the sources I have used in producing the episode. I am trying to encurage people to do their own research, think out of the box and stop believing everything they see and hear. The show also lives and dies by audience participation, so please go have a listen and tell me what you think. Contact details are in the show notes. I hope you like Radio Nowhere and it can add something meaningful to your podcast listening.
At this point I would be remiss if I donāt thank Dan Lynch, whoās arranged and recorded the wonderful version of the song Radio Nowhere that Iām using as this podcastās theme. It just works perfectly for the show, I feel.