third time lucky for treason a british lawmakers roundly rejected the prime minister's last ditch attempt to force her e.u. divorce deal claims that russia has interfered in every u.s. election since two thousand and four. and the german rock band ramstein faces a huge backlash for the group's controversial picture of the holocaust and their new singles and videos. right actually dot com has more on today's top stories get ready for some insightful commentary on the world of politics and much more on the big picture next stay with us. on this week's show corporate media the genie is out of the bottle pod casting just passed

a milestone and two of broadcasting most respected thought leaders will tell us what this means to the mainstream media but first while all other news channels have been doing one we will update several important stories you're not seeing covered elsewhere yes the next thirty minutes is freezone holland cook in washington this is the big picture on our t. america. chaos in venezuela electricity blackouts inflation measured in seven figure bringing home troops it just flew in what next for suffering friend let's ask our correspondent stan coerr and john how do you welcome thank you. thank you being

here battle lines are drawn china and russia both heavily invested in venezuela they back sitting president nicolas maduro and russia is sending literally tons of humanitarian aid meanwhile this week in an oval office photo op the wife of opposition leader one goh i don't know familiar cryptic talk from president trump that all options are open and why those sounds ominous speaking of impending tactical actions by his operation freedom down the wall street journal reports that the u.s. dollar is now the currency of choice on the streets of caracas you were recently feet away on the colombian border what is your sense of how venezuelans are coping . well i think when we talk about venezuela there's a lot of talk in us media about a humanitarian crisis but it's not a humanitarian crisis in the same sense that somewhere like the gaza strip or yemen or somalia is what there is is an economic crisis where as you said there's hyper inflation people are simply unable to buy goods it's not that there are no goods

now aside from that there is rolling there's these rolling blackouts and there's a lot of talk that this might be a result of u.s. plots and there's even some. evidence to indicate that maybe juries of the u.s. a cyberattack grant precisely but you know people i talked to on the ground in venezuela say life is actually pretty normal day to day now there is some poverty in how people deal with it actually is largely relying on what are called called the clap program it's basically government subsidized food boxes that they sell for about a dime apiece and that's how people eat and survive is flowing into venezuela as remittances from ex-pats here who are sending money home to family there john you're based in miami do you that is quite aware of whatever happens in cuba is there not a similar concern in florida for what's happening in venezuela sure there is but

first i can't believe this is a motor free zone that's a that's that's amazing it's been there at all or meltdown moeller mania. and media meltdown yeah but that's great to answer your question first of all plourde has the highest. percentage of venezuelans in the united states more than one hundred thousand venezuelans live in florida many of them in south florida huge city just outside miami many many venezuelans are there i've talked to of course in the time that i've been there and with this story many people and there is concern and i've also talked to people who are sending supplies medications medicine even food to. their relatives in venezuela there's a lot of support for the trump administration because there is a lot of venezuelan dissidents who do support the u.s. policies if anybody supports madeira they certainly haven't come out in public and certainly not to me so so there is support of wide of the trump administration and

there is ongoing concern and i think that will continue and of course you know the president when he you know during the last month and further emphasized that he went to florida international university remember and had that rally there and brought venezuelans in to basically cheer him on in his you and the administration in the u.s. policies when it comes to venezuela well meanwhile another flashpoint the middle east and you both have spent a lot of time there it's a rough neighborhood president trump is crowing that isis has been defeated john has no i wouldn't say so i think that it's been certainly isis's capabilities isis in syria and iraq have been severely diminished but there still are isis factions there's still the ideology and support of the ideology and isis remains active in the sinai peninsula and also parts of africa including west africa so the concern is that while isis has been severely diminished in syria and iraq we could see

a repeat like we did with al qaida when the u.s. invaded iraq al qaeda went underground and then the reserve search resurgence years later that is a concern and isis operatives not only throughout the middle east region but in europe as well why sources in a place that is reducing its presence in syria continues to provide military support to the kurds why well the kurds have been the u.s. is number one ally in the fight against isis and have made significant strides but i mean a lot of the fight against isis has been carried out by sworn enemies of the united states actually by the. syrian army itself by the lebanese militant group hezbollah by the iranians and by the russians so you know it's a very kind of complex web in syria but i mean we could definitely see a resurgence as john talked about while isis has been territorially defeated in the

sense they don't actually control territory have borders anymore many of the fighters fled. and went to a province in the north which the united states brett mcgurk who is the special envoy to the coalition to defeat isis said it is the largest al qaeda gathering since nine eleven and the united states as much as it talks about you know wanting to defeat terrorism has made very clear that any operations by the syrian army or the russians against basically terrorists groups al qaeda and al qaeda affiliated groups in a red line and basically do not touch them so it's a it's a very kind of contradictory policy in a lot of ways we never seem to have a slow news week anymore and mr trump has also called for up ending dead heights which it captured from syria and one nine hundred sixty seven prime minister netanyahu tweeted thanks to the president at a time when iran's seeks to use syria as

a platform to destroy israel president trump boldly recognizes israelis sovereignty over golan heights thank you president trump yet this week the usa stood alone at an emergency meeting in the un security council as the fourteen other member states condemned its recognition of israel's golan heights anik sation dan what's at stake there in terms of war and peace and what are the political consequences for both netanyahu and trump in israel the golan heights and in that region in particular but the golan heights have become yet another flashpoint in geo. political crisis between not only the regional actors but also major actors like the united states and russia now the golan heights have been occupied by israel from syria since one thousand nine hundred sixty seven israel annexed it in one thousand nine hundred one in a move that basically the entire world including the united states rejected there

was a u.n. security council resolution against it so this moved to recognize israel's sovereignty over this occupied territory has really isolated once again the united states. and the international international stage and it's also raised the stakes in the region i mean the syrians at the at the u.n. security council said what was taken by force will be taken back by force the you know lebanese group hezbollah is much stronger than it was in two thousand and six when israel invaded lebanon and was basically booted out after some time so if there is really a military escalation it could not only stay in syria israel it could have major potential to expand kill a lot of people on all sides of the borders and even bring in iran saudi arabia russia the united states potentially world war three it's extremely dangerous objects are everything attention is currency netanyahu seems to use the media as

well as trump does doesn't mean yeah i mean really before there was president trump talking about fake news and which there was prime minister netanyahu talking about the same thing but one thing that i understand first of all as far as the golan this was really symbolic more than anything it doesn't necessarily change what's happening on the ground but it is the president's recognition and the announcement of the sovereignty certainly increases the bear a metric pressure right in that region right at a time when it's already escalating and certainly between israel and hamas and palestinian islamic jihad in the gaza strip and then yes the other regional actors iran. lebanon hezbollah and the russians too it sure could have catastrophic consequences now as far as prime minister netanyahu he still has a great deal of support you know and keep in mind the president's deck relations declaration comes two weeks before the israeli elections on april ninth and right

now by all accounts a day and we're going to be talking about this leave of the scandals going with criminal indictment on bribery and corruption charges he still leading because a lot of it's almost like you one would equate the die hard supporters just like the diehard bibi netanyahu supporters they see bibi as israel and he still has that strong staunch support will trumps backing push him over you know and not only creases lead in the polls but get him reelected we'll see because trust is popular in israel he's very popular in israel and the latest numbers show that netanyahu does lead over benny gantz former i.d.f. chief chief of the blue and white party and also the other aspect aside from those who support bibi there are many who support his party sure so they vote it's like you know republicans voting republican democrats vote a lot of credit a lever of ill will support this past week a pac twenty one team the american israel public affairs committee conference here

in washington always of domestic u.s. a political import down any headlines from this year's event well i was a i was a pack this year and i mean it was really fascinating for one thing because the majority of the animates from the speakers was directed not at robert bowers the white supremacist who murdered eleven jews as they were praying in a synagogue in pittsburgh there was a lot of talk about you know how do we combat this these this kind of ideology this kind of danger it was actually represent it was directed at the congress freshman congresswoman bill one omar who's said semitic though you know a lot of a lot of people. said we're not anti-semitic we're just simply critiques of israel's influence in the united states now as i said the majority of the speech was about you'll have no mark so that was really remarkable for me but you know i think in a lot of ways the fact that it struck such a chord it was a couple of tweets it was in

a speech on you know the floor of the house or on the right that the fact that she struck such a chord kind of vindicates kind of vindicates her proves her point that there's this huge reaction from all from people in the democratic party and certainly in the republican party denouncing her first making very you know minor comment was certainly gave her the publicity and i did oh i met headlines and i do. john honey and then call on pleasure thank you and coming up the corporate media audition is over a pod casting is gone mainstream and if you have something to say our next guest will tell you how this is the big picture on r t america.

in terms of mr why don't. he's played a useful role but i think that the mistake he's made thus far he's not announcing that he would not stand for president so to say to the venezuelan people and to the international community i've done my role which i believe is a constitutional one is the interim president but don't look for me to run i think if he were to do that i think the situation in venezuela be perceived as less one of the united states for. the tense situation in venezuela is still all over the news. the problem in venezuela is not that socialism has been poorly implemented but that socialism has been only implemented for inside venezuela things are different we're going to announce sanctions against . venezuela so if you. have a son of

a moment. that person that. data to see on. the map of the moment focus on the who story isn't new makes him henry kissinger to tell him not be tolerated in latin america. an alternative economic and social system could take hold and therefore the policy would be to make. economy scream so wants and making the economy of venezuela screed. after the previous stage of my career was over everyone wondered what i'd logical to sit on fields where everything is familiar on the other they wanted a new challenge and the fresh perspective i'm used to suppressing us all if.

i'm going to talk about football not the or else in the sink i was going to the. by the way what is that that's. the term pod casting was coined back when this shiny object was flying off the shelves remember i pod suddenly everyone had one and then just several years later and just as suddenly everyone didn't when i phone debut it could also tote your songs and perform thousands of other functions back to the future of the term pod casting out live to i pod and today the p o d and podcasting stands for programming on demand and the supply side is uncontrolled by corporate media anyone can pod

cast who is listening let's s. two of my brothers in the radio family fred jacobs is president of detroit based jacobs media he's a popular speaker and a research guy who prefers the title data whisperer and michael harrison is the publisher of talkers magazine the trade pub talk media he hosts the michael harrison interview on podcast one and i tunes they both joined us from sunny f.l. a gentlemen welcome back to the big picture. thank you thank you hala apple invented i pod as a music appliance and it was a users who. reckoned that audio is audio and they started publishing the spoken word files when i was lurking at pas survey from our pals at edison research tells us that for the first time since they started tracking this stuff back in one nine hundred ninety eight more than half of americans have listened to a podcast about a third of us listen every month more than a fifth of us listen every week and they listen to an average of seven pod casts

a week fred i chuckled when i read your blog post comparing this fifty one percent tipping point to saying that half of consumers have tried sushi sure it's promising there's a doesn't make roughish wrapped in rice mainstream cuisine funny line but do these listen to ever to listen to monthly to listen weekly numbers what radio nerds like us call conversion and do these numbers tell us that pod casting is now mainstream media. well they tell us it's getting closer but still when half the population hasn't really engaged with the media platform we're not quite there yet and there's a lot of people who just don't get pod casting the they don't know what it is they don't know where to find them you know there's only a native pod cast app on i phones android phones don't have one so there are

some barriers to entry just from the standpoint of usage so i think we're getting closer but we're not really at the mainstream point just yet there's a lot easier now that i phone has that podcasting app though there's less download gymnastics you have to go through all right. it's much easier in the search is actually pretty good right if you have an i phone that little purple icon there on your desktop is the pod casting app and it really makes it easy it's much more challenging on android phones and there are so many different handsets that google . who makes android of course really i think has struggled trying to figure out what the right pod cast interfaces for their phones michael in our on demand culture everything seems to be on you tube and netflix has become the world's biggest t.v. network is i tunes becoming the new radio. that's an interesting question

i tunes it's becoming one of the platforms for radio today old radio is the new radio it just has many different appliances that people can listen to it on and i think that i tunes is the platform for radio on demand but we mustn't forget even though on demand is becoming such an important aspect and form of outreach for radio there's a lot more to radio than just pod casting an on demand radio is a wonderful medium for live breaking stories for up to the minute news and sports and i tunes doesn't quite do that for us so no i tunes is not the new radio old radio is the new radio it just has to adapt to many different appliances just and what broadcasters have to do is deliver something that you can't get from a podcast you wouldn't age well on demand it's the live local information right michael. oh absolutely in a matter of fact just because something is

a podcast doesn't mean that necessarily it fits the theory in the tenets of what podcasting is taking an old radio show and putting it out as a podcast is it is a form of a podcast but just because you filmed something going on at some a vent doesn't make it a theatrical motion picture so the relationship between content and platform still is in the heart it's the heart of media theory and we must thing in this new mix well now to your point we three are broadcasters our life's work has been crafting mass appeal audio for a localized consumer base podcasters can talk about whatever they want on a world wide web fred creating the show is the easy part as broadcasters our challenge is always been getting people to listen and that's challenging enough for f.m. and am stations competing with a dozen or two other local stations there are now too many pod cast so relevance

has lots to do with cutting through the clutter fred which topics tend to play well as podcasts while there's a lot of popular genres right now true crime and really the podcast serial was kind of a breakout hit for the true crime genre but there's all the beauty of pod casting it's a very long tail content platform so there's all kinds of different areas including some very narrow places i mean everything from quilting to woodworking you name it and there's a pod cast in fact there's probably multiple podcasts there's about seven hundred thousand podcasts floating around out there now so it's not like there is a lack of pod cast but trying to find a topic that really speaks to the passion of your audience is really the key and you really have to understand your target in order to be able to communicate with them and speak their language and being no worldwide audience can. your target

is not so much about geography it's not so much about demography but there may be enough people in the world who care about bonsai trees to listen to something that is very narrow and appeal right fred exactly and that's really is the beauty of it right in in radio and television and broadcasting we have to be consumed with this idea of a mass audience but with pod casting it can be a very very fine fragment that people who are really in to a particular topic or space so yeah it's a whole different kind of thing in to some degree that's why radio people often struggle in the pocket space because they're so used to thinking mass when really the key to pod casting is to think more narrow michael podcasting has zero barrier to entry there's no audition anyone can create one on a smartphone and list it for free on the i tunes directory no corporate gate keeper but no editing to ensure technique that makes what's being said easy on the ear

offer us some best practices for podcasters everything fred said should be understood by podcasters because if you're going out in the podcasting world to have a mass audience the odds are against you podcasting isn't cool it isn't even a platform it's just a vehicle it's like selling typewriters and expecting everybody to become authors of the great american novel you know or selling four tracks in every rock group is going to make sergeant pepper it's just a tool for making things so you have got to know your audience and you've got to know your subject you have to stay ahead of the curve on the subject because you're talking to people who are interested in it so if you're serving them warmed over leftovers of what they know they're going to tune out and you have to respect their time but this is something that affects all media today we live in a sped up universe and people don't. i have the time so you can't go on and meander

and just say hey i'm here look at me you can't get any more you have to be prepared and you have to remain a student of the subject that you talk about as well as an expert humility for attention span something else that just jumped off the page as i read this edison research report smart speakers if i say. i'm waking up robo voices in three times as many viewers homes as i would have just two years ago the average smart speaker owner now owns two more than a quarter of who own a mon three fred are smart speakers broadcast radio friend or foe well they're actually friend because actual regular radios are disappearing they're growing very very quickly we really call it i phone growth at this point really moving you know well and all of our research indicates that

a lot of people actually listen to radio stations on their smart speakers so there's a lot of excitement in broadcast radio about the potential for spark smart speakers and already in streaming data we are seeing an awful lot of streaming usage for broadcast radio on smart speakers so the early returns are really quite good thank you fred jacobs jacobs media and jake apps and michael harrison talkers magazine and thank you for watching the big picture if you see us somewhere else you can also now watch our ti america live and you tube dot com slash our america and we're also live on direct t.v. channel three two one of the super cool bluto t.v. app one three two and on dish two eight zero and all of our shows are available on demand any time anywhere on any device at youtube dot com slash the big picture r t m holland cook in washington. i'm back here same time next week and in the meantime

i am at holland cook on twitter where if you follow me i'll follow you questioned more. the great tragic comedy known as russia gate is slowly becoming part of history the resistance continues to resist trump but clearly the president has the wind at its back now is a time for a great awakening what are the lessons to be learned in can the liberal media recover from this fiasco.

reserve bank the european central bank the bank of england the bank of japan they are fifty sixty seventy percent leveraged much more leverage than long term capital management ever ones that we've ever seen in the history. of skullduggery but it doesn't matter because they can print and buy back their own in an instant cycle. profitless prosperity and then one day while. over the cliff chasing the road runner there's a moment of recognition and oh oh oh oh oh there you go it's all. president

. pushing for his removal. able to achieve political goals in latin america.