Near the close of the OpenDataRace, a popularity contest for data sets that affect nonprofit missions, I was asked onto NewsWorks Tonight, the daily, local drive-time news radio show from NPR affiliate WHYY. We recorded the segment last week and it aired Monday.

Read more about the contest here, see the data sets and register to vote here and listen to the NewsWorks segment below.

LISTEN HERE.

I was on the program back in June to talk about the open data movement and other initiatives here. I got some fun comments from friends, like this one.

Though I was sure to note during my interview that OpenDataPhilly was built by development shop Azavea, unfortunately that was cut in the tight finalized product.

Listen to the entire show here. Below, listen to my short segment with host Dave Heller.

In addition to OpenDataPhilly.org, Heller asks me about the OPA Data Liberator project and SEPTA’s new TransitView initiative. To be clear, while related in audience and now included in ODP, those projects were not specifically created by using the data catalog’s information.

LISTEN HERE

I was recently interviewed for WHYY on eBay’s acquisition of regional e-commerce powerhouse GSI Commerce, but this was the first time I appeared on the new local radio program, which launched in May.

With new host James Cartwright on Carole's Corner on Technology, on March 31, 2010.

After a few months since my first appearance on Carole’s Technology Corner, an hour-long Wednesday radio show on 900 AM WURD, I was asked back tonight, focusing largely on a collaboration of Philadelphians pursuing Google money for a super high-speed broadband network.

The fill-in host was James Cartwright, a former IT specialist for the City of Philadelphia.

Because of some difficulties, the audio wasn’t available to be sent my way.

With Stephanie L. Lowe during a commercial break of Carole I Smith's Technology Corner show on 900AM WURD, Dec. 30, 2009

After the unfortunate passing of the show’s host earlier this month, I may have been on one of the last episodes of Carole’s Technology Corner, a trend radio program broadcast weekly on 900AM WURD in Philadelphia.

On Dec. 30, 2009, I took the 15 minute walk from my home in Fishtown to the Penn Treaty Park complex near the Delaware River and into the station’s third floor studio, as another show closed before 7 p.m.

The topic was national technology trends in 2009, though I was there on behalf of Technically Philly, which focuses on regional creative economies. The show’s host and the Executive Director of the Mayor’s Commission on Technology Carole Smith was unable to attend. Indeed, in the following weeks she’d pass at 67 after battling pancreatic cancer, so I was the sole guest of sit-in host Stephanie L. Lowe.

Below, listen to the program, including some thoughts on the gadget and communications stories of the year and discussion about TP’s revenue and News Inkubator. (Ignore the first 30-seconds of filler intro music)

Listen here.

You can also watch below a portion of the show.

Interviewing Smokin Joe Frazier in his Center City apartment on Monday, April 6, 2009 for WHYY, Philadelphia's NPR affiliate.

Boxing legend Joe Frazier is the focus of my second professionally produced radio piece, though the first to carry the radio station’s name in my disptatch. Eight months after filing a trial state government report for the Harrisburg bureau of KYW 1060 news radio, I proudly completed a feature report for WHYY, Philadelphia’s NPR affiliate.

I interviewed Frazier, recorded my narration in a sound booth in WHYY’s Old City headquarters and edited it all together with natural sound — aided immeasurably by the patient stewardship of WHYY Web producer Dan Pohlig. I also wrote a short post to run with the piece on the public radio station’s Unobstructed View blog.

In a city eager for celebrities, I’ve never quite understood why we haven’t embraced Smokin’ Joe Frazier. Most of Joe Frazier’s life, which has seen him rise to international, cultural icon and then fade into the shadows, has been spent calling Philadelphia home.

The 65-year-old former heavyweight champion of the world beat Muhammad Ali once, but officially lost to him twice, including in the famed 1975 Thrilla in Manila, which is featured in a new eponymous HBO documentary. [Source]

Read more and hear my audio report here or below.

Listen here.

Then come back to read the backstory and some of what didn’t make it into the final report below.

I’ve interviewed Frazier before — at least three times now, if memory serves. First in my covering his now-shuttered and for sale landmark North Broad Street gym as a columnist for The Temple News, just a short bicycle ride south of his old home. Then, at least once for what was to be a cover story on him for Philadelphia Weekly in March 2008 — what a shame Philadelphia magazine happened to drop its own profile the week before mine. My story got shelved, and I didn’t get my first alt-weekly cover until last week.

This documentary gave my interest in Frazier new life for a story. I find him to be a fascinating character, one worth a far greater amount of attention than he actually gets today.

I saw the HBO documentary this weekend and found it captivating – if a little too kind on Frazier. I really enjoyed its involving the 1970s racial politics these two fighters took on.

Now just a few choice quotations and cuts that didn’t make it into my report — excuse the numbers, which refer to where they are in my recording of our interview:

• Of course, it was Frazier who helped make the left hook the signature threat of a pugilist from Philadelphia, once a brilliant capital of the sport that has seen better days.
• “I came up the hard way. I raised my kids the hard way. But they were happy.” [25:35]
• “I want it to go way back to where I came from.” [9:18]
• “Everyone says 1971, when I fought Muhammad was a great moment, but what about me getting up early with my father, cooking the liquor… walking down the street in my home state on one side, while my white brother has to walk on the other side.” [9:51]
• Now he spends slow days following nearly the same exercise regimen he has done for decades, though no longer in his landmark North Philadelphia gym on North Broad Street near Glenwood Avenue.
• Exercise, he says, “keeps your brain in shape.” [11:50]
• His daily regimen includes time on a treadmill and a stationary bicycle tucked in the bedroom of his Center City apartment.
• “I’m not going to box anybody now.” [14:10]
• “I’m 220 pounds and no fat, that’s fighting weight,” he says. “It keeps the mind in balance.” [15:16]
• Of the cost of his famed North Broad Street gym, now closed and up for sale, Frazier asks, “Why do I have to keep digging in my pocket when you have a mayor and a governor.” [1630] [15:50],[36:05]
• “We felt that Joe’s story had not really properly been told,” director John Dower told the L.A. Times.

Check footage of Round 15 of the first battle between Frazier and Ali, which Smokin’ Joe won and is often called the best fight of their three bouts. See it here.