{"podcast":{"title":"Radical with Amol Rajan","slug":"radical-with-amol-rajan-6625076","podcast_index_feed_id":6625076,"rss_url":"https://podcasts.files.bbci.co.uk/p0gg4k6r.rss","website_url":"http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0gg4k6r","image_url":"http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/3000x3000/p0lgrqcb.jpg","author":"BBC","episode_count":226,"summary":"Conversations about tomorrow, from Today. Every week Amol Rajan talks to radicals, pioneers and innovators from all over the world. From populism and climate change, to economics and AI... How can their radical ideas help you win the future? Amol Rajan is a presenter of the Today programme on BBC Radio 4. He is also the host of University Challenge on BBC One. Before that, Amol was media editor at the BBC and editor at The Independent. Episodes of Radical with Amol Rajan will be published on Thursdays on BBC Sounds. It will also be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Thursdays at 11pm. Visualised versions of the podcast will also be available on BBC iPlayer and YouTube. Radical with Amol Rajan is a Today Podcast.","last_synced_at":"2026-07-13T10:20:57.578644+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/radical-with-amol-rajan-6625076"},"episode":{"title":"The Reading Recession: Are We Making Ourselves Less Intelligent? (James Marriott)","slug":"the-reading-recession-are-we-making-ourselves-less-intelligent-james-marriott","published_at":"2026-04-09T05:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/radical-with-amol-rajan-6625076/the-reading-recession-are-we-making-ourselves-less-intelligent-james-marriott","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/radical-with-amol-rajan-6625076","url":"http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002tpw0","audio_url":"http://open.live.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/6/redir/version/2.0/mediaset/audio-nondrm-download-rss/proto/http/vpid/p0nc7s48.mp3","summary":"This week, the columnist and writer James Marriott argues that reading is essential to the rise and fall of liberal democracy. He proposes that reading helps the spread of information, encourages critical thinking, and forces people to structure their ideas logically. But he’s concerned the shift from deep reading to digital skim-reading - driven largely by screens - is weakening our ability to think in complex, reflective ways. He suggests the decline has political consequences - that a less literate, more screen-dependent public may be more vulnerable to misinformation and less capable of meaningful democratic participation. GET IN TOUCH * WhatsApp: 0330 123 9480 * Email: radical@bbc.co.uk Episodes of Radical with Amol Rajan are released every Thursday. Your Radical Questions is released every Monday. Amol Rajan is a presenter of the Today programme on BBC Radio 4, and he’s the host of University Challenge on BBC One. Before that, Amol was media editor at the BBC and the editor of The Independent newspaper. Radical with Amol Rajan is a Today Podcast. It was made by Lewis Vickers and Rufus Gray with Anna Budd, Cordelia Hemming and Oscar Pearson. Digital production was by Gabriel Purcell-Davis. Technical production was by Johnny Hall. The editor is Sam Bonham.","meta_description":"This week, the columnist and writer James Marriott argues that reading is essential to the rise and fall of liberal democracy. He proposes that reading he…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":3496,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/radical-with-amol-rajan-6625076/episodes/the-reading-recession-are-we-making-ourselves-less-intelligent-james-marriott/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/radical-with-amol-rajan-6625076/the-reading-recession-are-we-making-ourselves-less-intelligent-james-marriott.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}