After a good, long run co-hosting the KDHX talk show “The Wire,” Amanda Doyle and I have decided to change the program’s direction. Even the name.
Tonight, the show “Topic A” will be debut, featuring the same two co-hosts/producers, but a somewhat new approach to our, well, topics. Instead of a hyper-local guest schedule, with emphases on both civics and culture, we’re moving to a themed, monthly format. For November, that theme will be “new media.” And while the show will have a new, more nationalized format, tonight’s guest will be local: Elie Gardner, the multi-media guru at STLtoday.com/multimedia, who’ll discuss both her paper’s move towards new media and the best practitioners in the industry.
Booking this new experiment has been interesting; instead of calling across town for someone to join us that evening, or the next week, we’re now looking at guests for several months down the road. So far? Some intriguing guests are booked. (One name for December, our “columnists” month? No less than Howard Zinn, famed author and historian and monthly contributor to The Progressive.) We hope to keep listeners informed of those additions to the lineup with a new blog, coming shortly. Plus some new features will be rolled alongside the recurring “Barroom Bob”; that one we’d never change.
In the meantime, we hope you give the new show a listen: live tonight, at 7:30 p.m. CST, or streaming at KDHX.org.