Media Podcasts: TED talks

IF you have yet to discover TED, then 1. What planet have you been on? and 2. A treat awaits.

Comprising deliberately short-ish speaker presentations, from TED conferences held around the world, some of the most interesting people one could hope to imagine listening to are but a keyboard click away.

It might be a pricey ticket to attend a TED conference, but the video and audio that comes from them (well, at least much of it) is free. As the  TED website says: ‘Riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world’.

The website strapline adds: ‘Ideas worth spreading’.

You get the drift. A philanthropic ethos underpinned by extremely high production values.

And just as there is plenty of video to enjoy, there is also audio content too.

As you might imagine, TED (which stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design) includes talks from journalists and others involved in the media. And among the relatively recent presentations – available via iTunes here – is from undercover journalist, Anas Aremeyaw Anas, who has broken dozens of stories about corruption and organised crime in Ghana, Africa.

The video version shows him speaking behind a mask, to hide his identity. The principles behind his journalism, he says, are about ‘naming, shaming and jailing’.

He says: “Journalism is about results, it is about affecting your community or your society in the most progressive way.”

And he deals in delivering hard evidence, including after spending a “long time” in prison (after managing to get himself sentenced in court), to report on the treatment of prisoners.

Some people might find some of his content distressing.