Reply #13: wow....that article is being

[stillcool]

plastered all over the net! Of course, Nowhere in it do I see your nasty remarks, but that's not unusual. What I want to know is...who is Todd Spivak?


Reporter: Obama "sounded vanilla" back when I covered him
Dallas Observer
In 2000, Todd Spivak covered Barack Obama's district for two community newspapers. "I was 25 and had no problem interviewing big-wig politicians, but I always had to steel my nerves when calling Obama," he writes. "His intelligence was intimidating, and my hands inevitably shook and sweated." The politician wasn't all that different from the image he projects now, but "one thing I can say is, I never heard him launch into the preacher-man voice he now employs during speeches. He sounded vanilla, and activists in his mostly black district often chided him for it."
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http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-070403obama-ballot,1,57567.story
December 28, 2005
Houston Press... just like all the rest.

Todd Spivak of the Houston Press called me (and a couple other Houston podcasters) a few weeks ago for "an article he was doing on podcasting." We talked at length on the phone about all the cool things happening in podcasting. We talked about the amazing growth, we talked about the explosion of indie music on podcasts, we talked about the strong group of podcasters in Houston... in general, we talked about what a great new medium this was.

His article came out today and boy was I surprised. I was surprised enough to immediately shoot off a letter to the editor. This is the letter I sent:

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What a total hack piece. Mr. Spivak called me in preparation for his article and despite a lot of facts to the contrary, proceeded to paint podcasting as a sideshow act of freaks with only a handful of listeners. Mr. Spivak had at his disposal professional podcasters in the Houston community that have large listener bases, advertisers, and compelling content. To paint podcasting in general, and the Houston podcasting scene in particular, with this brush is disingenuous if not libelous.