Public Radio International — home of Marketplace, This American Life, Studio 360, etc. — is premiering a show meant to engage “callers, e-mailers, and bloggers from around the world in a range of fascinating topics”. The program, called Open Source, says it wants to begin discussion of issues on the Web and involve a worldwide audience in the development of the show’s content. PRI’s Web division, Public Interactive, is developing the online elements to go along with the show.
Says host (and blogger and podcaster) Christopher Lydon: “My ambition, with producer Mary McGrath, is to thread the seeming chaos of the Web into a coherent skein of ideas and argument. We want to launch the smartest, most various, wide-open, irresistible, and democratic conversation anyone’s ever been invited to join, in any format. The Internet transition we’re living through is a boundless opportunity. It extends the rim of the roundtable and the range of the give-and-take to the whole planet.”
Really interesting idea but it’s all about the execution (and topics discussed, of course). Wonder if they’ll use trackbacks, blog search and the like to keep track of the conversation.