Seventy-five years ago, on July 28, 1933, Sheila Barrett became the first woman to make a national broadcast on BBC Radio. The anniversary got us here at the Takeaway thinking, how have American women shaped the tone and distinction of the radio waves?

President Bush summed up America's recent economic woes this week with four cool words: "Wall Street got drunk." The Takeaway asked you for more catchy crisis slogans.
Listen Add to Playlist

The thing I remember most vividly about beginning my internship at TransAfrica Forum, the foreign policy lobbyist group founded in 1977 to pressure the U.S. Government to do right by Africa and the African Diaspora, was that I didn't want to be there.

Joss Whedon ("Buffy the Vampire Slayer") and Seth MacFarlane ("Family Guy"), two of television's most powerful showrunners, are taking their brands online. Whedon's "Dr. Horrible" will be an on-the-cheap supervillain musical. MacFarlane's "Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy" will be distributed by the advertising juggernaut Google, who just might be reinventing TV...
Listen Add to Playlist

Today, Christie's auctions a memento from John Lennon: his scrawled lyrics for “Give Peace a Chance.” Lennon gave the page to then-16-year-old Gail Renard in 1969 after she and a friend climbed up a fire escape to see him and Yoko Ono during their Montreal “bed-in.”
Listen Add to Playlist

Listen Add to Playlist

Contributor's notes: It's not easy being Kobe

“There can only be one,” reads the tagline of the NBA’s 2008 playoff marketing campaign, splitting the faces of top players to emphasize that no one gets a participation award. Yet, the Los Angeles Lakers Game 5, 103-98 victory over the Boston Celtics, featured a different kind of split — the split personality of Kobe Bryant.

Since Shaquille O’Neal departed following the 2004 season, Bryant’s dominant personality on the court and in the media was of an immensely (and perhaps singularly) talented player, whose own ego was his opponent’s best defense. Though Bryant piled on the points, the best the heir-apparent to Michael Jordan could do in the playoffs was a first round exit. The only titles Bryant won without O’Neal were “selfish” and “temperamental.”

Yet, this year is different, right? Bryant’s “get me guys to play with or trade me” threats paid off and the
Listen Add to Playlist

Selected films:

• Michael Clayton (producer/actor, 2007)
• Sketches of Frank Gehry (director/producer/cinematographer, 2005)
• Cold Mountain (producer, 2003)
• The Firm (director/producer, 1993)
• Out of Africa (director, 1985)
• Tootsie (director/actor, 1982)
• Absence of Malice (director, 1981)
• Three Days of the Condor (director, 1975)
• They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (director, 1969)

View a slideshow of Sydney Pollack's life in movies, produced by The New York Times.