Radio War Nerd EP #140 — A Podcast Criticism of A Podcast ("Caliphate")
Recorded July 11, 2018
In this episode we try something new and untested—a podcast version of a media criticism piece on another podcast: "Caliphate" the 10-part New York Times series on Islamic State, hosted by reporter Rukmini Callimachi. We made it extra-hard on ourselves by choosing a deep dive critique on a podcast series that's mostly pretty good with some large glaring flaws — rather than straight-up horrible (and therefore an easy target). A valiant & doomed effort, by the end of our episode we come to realize why no one else has tried doing this before . . .
Total time: 2:32:03
Direct link to this episode's mp3 here
Comments (17)
Great EP, but what about the other major thread, the Yazidi girls? I thought this was by far the most interesting line. The way they thought their return home was all an elaborate trick by their captors, chilling. The support Callimachi had been able to provide them was also quite admirable I thought.
Thanks for answering in the Iran episode!
FWIW, I think you guys missed A Million Little Pieces II because of your misplaced trust of the NYT's fact-checkers...
I'd like to point out that I John Dolan'ed this one. I like to say "I told you so", so I will. This podcast was obviously a howling load of crap and now even the NYT has caught on. How bad does it have to be when those clowns admit it: https://nypost.com/2020/12/18/ny-times-admits-caliphate-podcast-based-on-botched-reporting/ LOL!
Re: Ezra Pound- and how does being a pretentious lunatic disqualify one from being a (readable) poet exactly? Personae was good, a few Cantos were good. I mean like what you like, hate whatever you want. Rube me rather enjoys hearing about your formative tangles with the academy but I read the guy in high school before I knew anything and he’s still something to me despite the Italian stuff and the mental hospital and the disillusionment and slander. His flaws are apparent through all that, but the pretentious lunatic element I rather like...
The failure to seriously consider that maybe the whole story is bogus was really striking. What if this doofus made the whole thing up? Seems reasonably likely to me, and would also explain why he hasn't been arrested. Walter Mitty goes jihadi and gets in a little deeper than he wanted to. He told me details that only he could know? I'm not so sure...a loser reading everything on the web about Daesh could probably gin up a pretty good story.
Good episode. I thing you might be misinterpreting the ending of the podcast though, it's something of a narrative trope in long form podcasting that "the world is complex, there are no easy answers, and usually we just don't find a good resolution" - most of the long form podcasts end with this sort of unsatisfying narrative ending. So perhaps the lack of the Hollywood ending is more deliberate than you think.
I've noticed the cheesy reverb thing in a lot of acapella Islamic music. Maybe it's an Arab thing or something.
Great episode! I feel like some of the best episodes are when they’re doing media criticism. It’s the perfect template for those “digressive tendencies” :)
It always nice to have all your jihadi prejudices confirmed, but please don't take the entire episode next time - or at least shot in some world of wars - these NYT-lameos aren't worth that much time. All in all, this new segment wasn't very interesting, albeit quite funny. That Croatian footballer has played a long time for Dynamo Kyiv, so I don't think it's a Croatian thing to support Ukrainian fascists, just a personal grievance. He almost got kicked out of the world cup by the Croatians themselves for posting these things.
Great idea. I'm liking it so far. This reminds me, Tom Seker has a really good series of podcasts about Al Quaida & the CIA's connections to them. It's not total conspiracy nonsense. It walks the line very well. Tom would be a good guest to discuss the topic in general.
Similarly Mark Curtis would be a great guest, maybe he can talk about his book that they did a show on. Although the ultimate guest would be Sousa Jamba
For my money ISIS’ best recruitment propaganda was that Vice article that went “Bearded Badasses Fighting Assad Come Out With New Fashion Line”
Have you thought about making this episode free, to catch that "Caliphate" audience that feels weird about it and aren't quite sure why? Great episode, by the way. I'll be sure to point people this way, if they mention the NYT podcast
Good suggestion. Just from a marketing perspective, you may find that a good way to leverage the fame of the Caliphate podcast and bring in additional audience who might not otherwise find the RWN podcast.
I thought the episode went great, and would look forward to other similar episodes. One thought that went into my head was that Huzaifa went to the authorities immediately after the first interview. Maybe after the first interview he realized that he ruined whatever sense of security he had in being home (even though he didn't delete imstagram posts, and willingly accepted the interview), so he went to try and get a deal.
That could be right. It's clear at any rate that doing the interview changed his relation with Canadian security.