Spreading good ideas with someone you know is one of the simplest things we can do to improve the conversation.

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Spreading good ideas with someone you know is one of the simplest things we can do to improve the conversation.

• Walter Bergner replied on 02:02 PM on November 03, 2008
  Ridiculous. No substance. An insult to intelligence.
  
  comment NOT based on my political opinions.
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• Geoffrey Harriman replied on 08:24 PM on November 03, 2008
  While I like the premise, many of the speakers, and the topics that Big Think addresses, I've noticed a recurring frustrating tendency; the captions heading various interviews often bear little or no resemblance to the substance of the interviews.
  
  Sen. McCain's "interview" consists of less than one minute of the Senator speaking. He apparently responds to just two questions, and answers one of them with a mere eight words. I do not hold Big Think responsible for the length of Senator McCain's answers, but it's misleading to post clips from an interview with Sen. McCain, to headline those clips with "John McCain on Why He Might Lose," and then to post a vanishingly short vignette consisting entirely of the words "'Cause I didn't do a good enough job." That's not a subject's answer to a serious interview question, and Big Think shouldn't bill it as such. Like the previous commenter, my reaction here is in no way a reflection of my political views or my feelings about Sen. McCain - this is about mislabeling content.
  
  Another example of the same phenomenon can be found with political writer Jeff Toobin at its center. The Big Think caption promises that Toobin will take us behind the scenes at CNN and explain John King's "magic" touch screen display. Instead, the 1-2 minute clip shows Toobin explaining how he prepares with a CNN producer before an appearance. If Big Think were selling something, I'd say these headlines border on false advertising. A well-intentioned site, but it needs more careful editing.
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Reaching Your Audience

Kurt Andersen Novelist; Host, Studio 360 (NPR)

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Kurt Andersen Novelist; Host, Studio 360 (NPR)

• Contact Me

Kurt Andersen, host of Studio 360 on NPR, is a journalist and the author of the novels Hey Day, Turn of the Century, and The Real Thing. He has written and produced prime-time network television programs and pilots for NBC and ABC, and co-authored Loose Lips, an off-Broadway theatrical revue that had long runs in New York and Los Angeles. He is a regular columnist for New York Magazine, and contributes frequently to Vanity Fair. He is also a founder of Very Short List.  Andersen began his career in journalism at NBC’s Today program and at Time, where he was an award-winning writer on politics and criminal justice and for eight years the magazine’s architecture and design critic. Returning to Time in 1993 as editor-at-large, he wrote a weekly column on culture. And from 1996 through 1999 he was a staff writer and columnist for The New Yorker. He was a co-founder of Inside.com, editorial director of Colors magazine, and editor-in-chief of both New York and Spy magazines, the latter of which he also co-founded.  From 2004 through 2008 he wrote a column called “The Imperial  City” for New York (one of which is included in The Best American Magazine Writing 2008).  In 2008 Forbes. com named him one of The 25 Most Influential Liberals in the U.S. Media.

Anderson graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College, and is a member of the boards of trustees of the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, the Pratt Institute, and is currently Visionary in Residence at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. He lives with his family in New York City.

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