GUELPH POLITICAST #100 - Gerry Barker, Guelph Speaks

It took six long years to get here, but the day has finally arrived. Welcome, to the 100th episode of the Guelph Politicast! To celebrate this auspicious occasion, I wanted a surprise guest. Someone my dedicated audience might never have expected, but nonetheless would enjoy hearing from. In the end,  there was only one person I could think of. For 100 episodes you've heard Guelph speak, well now you'll hear from the guy that does "Guelph Speaks".

Yes, this week's guest on the podcast is none other than Gerry Barker! You may know the name, you may even occasionally visit his website Guelph Speaks, but as they say, "if you think you know Gerry Barker..." I admit that on the surface there doesn't seem to be a lot that Gerry and I agree on, which, to me, was all the more reason to host him on the podcast and have a chat about political things.

And this is a chat. Normally, these episodes of the show are interviews with pointed queries attempting to get information, but I'd like to think that this week's podcast is more relaxed and conversational. It's a getting-to-know-you session between two people coming from different ends of the media spectrum, and I don't just mean in terms of political leanings, although that too. Gerry Barker is an old school newspaper man in a digital world. I can relate, I got my start at a student paper, but most of my media career has been online.

So that's one thing we address on the podcast this week. We also talk about the Guelph media landscape, covering city hall, our various biases, some discussion of provincial politics, and there's even a little Trump talk. Gerry hates him too! So you see? We can all agree on something, can't we? There's was really only one area of the discussion that was out of bounds, and you can probably guess what that is, but otherwise, it was a fairly wide open conversation between the other guys on the Guelph media landscape.

So let's get this centenary party started! Here's this week's 100th episode of the Guelph Politicast!

You read more of Gerry's work by visiting his website here.

In other podcast news, due to the busy budget season about to begin in November, the Politicast will be going down to an every other week release schedule through to the end of the year.

The theme music for the Guelph Politicast is from the KPM Klassics collection by Syd Dale.

The host for the Guelph Politicast is Podbean. Find more episodes of the Politicast here.

Remember that the Politicast Podbean channel is also the host for podcast versions of Open Sources Guelph. The previous Thursday's episode of Open Sources will be posted on Mondays.