RadioLab is a brilliant show about science, told in an extremely clever non-traditional way. I’m always struggling with the line between good ethics and bad storytelling in new media. Many of the sounds on the show are created and the editing is extensive. But rather than being bad journalism, its brilliant storytelling and it just won a Peabody Award for…..
Immersive and boundlessly imaginative, the series uses pithy prose and state-of-the-art sound to illuminate complicated scientific and philosophical subjects.

Here’s a great quote from the NYTimes story written by Rob Walker:

“I asked Abumrad what a traditional radio producer would make of his meticulously constructed bruup bruup fhewm fhewm. “They would say it’s insane,” he said. Early on, he had to deal with “radio people” who thought he was wasting time on “artsy-fartsy namby-pampy” technical distractions. “But do you want to know why ‘Radiolab’ has worked beyond public radio?” he asked. “Because it sounds like life. You watch TV, and someone has labored over the feel. Look at ‘Mad Men’ or ‘The Sopranos’: the mood, the pacing, the richness of it, comes from those fine, quote-unquote technical choices.”

and even better, another quote on why it’s important to make things that last, not just things that are fast.