Funny that I spent part of my morning, while recording The Hobson & Holtz Report, trying to articulate why audio is a worthy supplement to text. The comments responded to posts by Darren Barefoot who insists that online text is just plain better in every way.

Funny because, shortly after wrapping up post-production, I heard the special edition of PJ Fenton’s Digital Flotsam podcast, an 11-minute appeal for donations to the Red Cross for Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. Applying magic and mastery of audio engineering, snippets of uniquely New Orleans music, his own reminiscences and a verbal portrait of the suffering people are experiencing in the Gulf, Fenton was able to reach emotional levels that would have taken thousands and thousands of words in plain old text…even if you can’t search it.

I’ve been sending tangible aid to some friends who have been rendered homeless by Katrina, but I haven’t yet gotten around to a general donation to relief funds. After my throat tightened at the end of Fenton’s special edition, I pulled out my credit card and called. Give it a listen and tell me that audio can’t reach you in places text cannot.