Unfortunately Shell has a flaw: in spite of her powers of observation, intelligence, and craft, she has a knack for hammering away at Big Ideas but falling short of sharp synthesis: her summaries tend to go thud.

Example: 100 years ago Oscar Wilde penned the immortal lines, “He knew the price of everything but the value of nothing.” Concise, elegant, powerful rhetoric, no-one will forget his point.

Shell makes similar points, but more dully, like repeating ad hoc we don’t know the price of anything.

Shell cite examples and gropes in imprecise economic and moral terms, but resists every golden opportunity to drive home the point like Wilde.

In short:
Wilde sizzles
Shell fizzles

And that’s a shame because the issue is relevant and vital, yet after being inundated by so much information, our eyes glaze, we stop seeing the forest for the trees, it blurs. Which is why I mentioned listening to the show twice, to try to connect a few more dots in Shell’s info buckshot.

Specific example: Shell says, “We’re getting watered down milk at a somewhat higher price than we might be paying if all the actors were transparent. If we really knew what we were getting.”

Why stop there? Not one word about laws or regulations require suppliers to clearly list contents? No to-the-point stand, like, ‘To rise above cheap water-down milk, isn’t it time we empowered our public sector?’ Wow, an idea as old as Upton Sinclair! But Shell just keeps meekly repeating, “We buy cheap and think we’re getting value.” Not quite a tribute to Ida Tarbell.

Etc., etc. In fairness, perhaps the fault lies with a ‘cheap’ publisher not having resources to help Shell refine her message further, i.e., perhaps Shell’s under pressure and a victim of world increasingly imposing cheap and cheaper diluted results from all of us. We ourselves end up paying the price for wanting it cheap.

What to do? Well, don’t hold your breath. Like many journalists, Shell bears witness, but doesn’t proffer solutions. This interview’s great “version 1.0″ but you need to keep swimming to reach land.