bugle

The Bugle, a news satire podcast, had just recorded a blistering show about the closing of The News of the World tabloid, and now he had to edit the less-than-kind audio that included riffs on the soullessness of those responsible and the opinion that the paper “would not be missed at all.”

The Bugle is published by The Times of London, also owned by Mr. Murdoch’s News Corporation.

“It was comedian’s gold, but an editor’s nightmare,” he remembered.

As some Murdoch-owned media properties chose to minimize the unfolding scandal, Mr. Skinner and the pair of comedians behind the podcast, Andy Zaltzman and John Oliver, went straight for the jugular. The Bugle, among the most popular comedy podcasts in Britain with roughly 400,000 weekly downloads, spent three weeks hammering their corporate owners, News International, and Mr. Murdoch himself.

Mr. Zaltzman compared the scene outside The Times of London’s recording studio in Wapping to war-ravaged Stalingrad and Nagasaki, described The Bugle “the last remaining pillar of Murdochia” and reveled in both the firing of Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive of News International, and the shaving cream pie that had struck Mr. Murdoch.

For Mr. Zaltzman, 36, the decision to go hard on News International was a natural for the four-year-old weekly podcast that takes on the main news of the day with the least reverence possible. “It was a news story that we had to address — and address it funnily — and I think we succeeded,” he said in a phone interview.

The show has recently found a surge of interest from the United States, owing in part to Mr. Oliver’s frequent appearances on “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart.” The number of downloads has nearly doubled in the last 18 months, according to rough statistics provided by Mr. Skinner, with much of the increase coming from American listeners. It is currently ranked among the top podcasts on iTunes.

The Bugle began in October 2007 shortly after Mr. Oliver, 34, moved to New York. The two comedians, who had worked together onstage in Britain and whose comedy closely follows the news, were approached by The Times of London to do a satire podcast.

“It took a while for us to find the best way to do it,” said Mr. Zaltzman. “But once it fell into the pattern it’s in, it’s stayed.”

Each show is a combination of scripted material and ad libs and is recorded and published on Fridays, with Mr. Zaltzman and Mr. Skinner sitting in the London studio, and Mr. Oliver joining by phone from New York.

The comedians write their jokes after briefly discussing the topics for the next program, but generally have not heard each other’s material until recording time. Spontaneous trans-Atlantic cackling is a large part of the appeal, for them and for the listener. “We try and make each other laugh while we’re recording it,” Mr. Zaltzman said.

As with most popular online productions, the show has spawned legions of loyal fans — known as Buglers — who have developed their own profane insider gags — like sending Mr. Skinner e-mail and Twitter messages telling him off — and even a Wikipedia-style site devoted to cataloging the show. (The official Web site is behind the newspaper’s paywall.)

The show follows a long tradition of British news satire from “That Was the Week That Was” in the early 1960s, to the 1990s radio show “On the Hour,” which Mr. Zaltzman said was among his inspirations.

Pairing a comedian with a newspaper to make a podcast is a newer phenomenon, beginning most notably with Ricky Gervais and The Guardian in 2005. Mr. Zaltzman also comes from a podcasting family: his sister, Helen Zaltzman, appears on another popular British comedy show, “Answer Me This!”

“What podcasting does is give acts who want to get into the mainstream media a platform to prove their talents,” said Richard Berry, a lecturer in radio at the University of Sunderland who has written about podcasting. “It can bring radio talent or writers the same opportunities that YouTube gives filmmakers.”

It was the freedom to do what they wanted that drew Mr. Zaltzman and Mr. Oliver to making the show. “There’s not been any guidance or request from the Times Online hierarchy about what we can and can’t say,” Mr. Zaltzman said.

With new hacking-scandal developments each week, the show appeared to push the boundary of that freedom, especially after a man hit Mr. Murdoch with a plate of shaving cream during a Parliamentary inquiry.

“I’m not saying Rupert Murdoch’s face didn’t look better with a shaving cream pie in it,” Mr. Oliver said during one episode. “You just don’t want to find yourself with any misplaced sympathy for Rupert Murdoch.”

The two then jokingly wondered on air whether anyone higher up at News International was listening. “Should this not have been stopped by now?” Mr. Oliver asked. “It doesn’t make sense!”

“I can take up busking, John, it’s all right,” Mr. Zaltzman responded.

But no one from the company has complained, Mr. Skinner and Mr. Zaltzman said, and the show goes on. After a break last week, the podcast returned on Friday to tackle the most recent devastating events from Britain: the London riots.

They have had a front-row seat at that as well. “Last night was a very scary journey home,” said Mr. Skinner, 32, who lives in the Hackney neighborhood of London where rioters rampaged last Monday.

Newsrooms in the late summer are generally quiet places. But this year, the big events have been coming steadily. “It’s a bit of a summer of rage in the U.K.,” Mr. Skinner said. “We seem to be bouncing from one story of anger into another.”

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=7d1d16f28837b66fb8aa9174181c4ea7

General Greene, a senior official in the Army’s research and development engineering command, is among a cadre of high-ranking officials pushing for the military to embrace technologies that are already popular among consumers, like smartphones, video games and virtual worlds. The goal is to provide engaging training tools for soldiers who have grown up using sophisticated consumer electronics and are eager to incorporate them into their routine.

At a time of shrinking budgets, these tools are viewed as relatively inexpensive supplements to larger, costlier training equipment while also providing a surprisingly realistic training experience.

The military is already using some video games for recruitment and to train soldiers, and it has started experimenting with virtual worlds, as well. The tools are developed specifically for military use.

In addition, the Army recently held a contest for soldiers to determine who could develop the best smartphone app.

Among the apps now available on an Army Web site: bugle calls, body fat calculator, Army creeds, sniper awareness and capture avoidance. (Most apps are for both the iPhone and Android phones, but some are for just one system.)

“We have to adapt to where they are,” General Greene said, speaking of the need to appeal to young soldiers and teach them in ways, and on devices, they are accustomed to. “This is something we absolutely have to do.”

But efforts to vastly expand the use of virtual games and everyday electronics have run into a slew of obstacles, not the least of which is a military bureaucracy slow to embrace change.

Security concerns about soldiers using wireless devices on the battlefield are one problem, because transmissions have to be encrypted. Another obstacle is the lingering belief among some high-level officials that games, gadgets and avatars simply have no place in the military.

For now, the budget for video games and smartphones for military training is a relative pittance. For instance, the Army spends roughly $10 million to $20 million a year on licenses, modifications and development of Army games.

“Budgets are always an issue,” said Frank C. DiGiovanni, director for training readiness and strategy at the Defense Department. “What I’m trying to do is demonstrate these are extremely effective.”

Mr. DiGiovanni made his remarks at GameTech, a five-year-old convention that was held here in Orlando in March. It showcases the military’s expanding use of simulators, video games, virtual worlds and smartphones.

Besides the video games that allow soldiers to rehearse for combat, vendors were offering devices that provide cultural and language lessons, medical training and shooting practice.

While GameTech is tiny by convention standards, with just 775 participants and 29 vendors, several participants said they considered it major progress that such an event was being held, given the skepticism military leaders displayed toward video games a decade ago.

“When I started with this in ’99, you couldn’t use the word ‘game,’ ” said James Korris, chief executive of Creative Technologies and a creator of one of the first military video games, Full Spectrum Warrior. “They were training guides, cognitive development tools.”

“GameTech?” he added. “Who would have thunk it?”

The military is partly responsible for the growth of the video game industry. For decades, it has created increasingly sophisticated simulators and computer-based war games.

Some of the people involved in the creation of those products went on to work for video game manufacturers, taking their expertise with them. Then, as commercial video games became more sophisticated, the military began borrowing ideas from them.

For instance, in the mid-1990s, some Marines tinkered with the popular Doom video game, replacing fantasy weapons with real ones and monsters with soldiers. A few years later, the military collaborated with academia and game developers to create Full Spectrum Warrior, which was designed to mimic combat.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=2e91df464426cf35c6f7c0d1f0ddcfc9

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