Planet Money is just sad now. It used to be some of the best financial reporting out there -- almost as good as Money Stuff by Matt Levine.
Now it's always falling over itself to be cute and talks down to its audience. It's like they think they're a podcast for middle schoolers, and if they're not cracking lame jokes and playing silly songs nobody will listen.
I’m curious how long ago you think Planet Money was good. I was never a regular listener, but I can remember 5 years ago being turned off by the relative lack of depth and time consuming humor.
I always wrote it off as “not my style” or “for a different audience” as opposed to thinking it was objectively bad.
Sad? Are you expecting lectures from economists? I’m sure you can find that somewhere, but I would expect podcast from a major media outlet to sim to be more accessible. There’s a lot of complex economics involved and I think they do a good job of explaining it in a layman’s terms.
Now it's always falling over itself to be cute and talks down to its audience. It's like they think they're a podcast for middle schoolers, and if they're not cracking lame jokes and playing silly songs nobody will listen.