edit: whoah, can someone help me understand the downvotes here? I realize this was an issue before the series (I work in literacy), but it certainly raised the public awareness in a completely new way.
After listening to it, I feel grateful to my father every time I pick up a book. He was dyslexic and spent most of his schooling in remedial reading classes, only to finally be taught phonics at a late age.
When our school asked him to volunteer to help teach reading, he completely ignored the method they presented him, which from the sounds of it was some kind of whole word or whole language method, and just taught us phonics.
Further, after listening to the podcast I've basically learned to recognise people who weren't taught phonics in the wild. Some of the reading errors other adults make that used to completely perplex me now make perfect sense.
I'm in Australia and not actually entirely clear what the current state of our reading education is, but it's clear that for about 50 years or so, at least, the trend ran against phonics, just as in the US. I'm unsure if this has been rectified or not, and it would probably vary by state I suppose.
Anyway, the podcast is very revealing not only about reading, but as a cautionary tale about pedagogical and other academic/professional fads.