I Fought the Law

Soviet Revisionism at the NPR-chives

Yesterday, on NPR's Morning Edition, Steven Inskeep read a brief excerpt from a letter I wrote on the air. This was very exciting, particularly in light of the fact that it was my birthday.

I sent the archive link from the NPR website to one of my NPR junkie friends today and said he didn't hear anything about me in the segment. Puzzled, I listened again and found that they had replaced my letter with a letter from someone else on the same subject. To be clear, the archived media file yesterday had my letter in it. So the media file itself has been edited and revised. The first letter is still the same. Apparently they had some buyer's remorse about my letter and decided to make it seem like their judgment was better in the first place.

So, apparently, NPR goes back and fiddles with their archived material after the fact. After some high-tech investigation, I've discovered the following additional lapses in judgment that have been corrected in the Morning Edition archives.

June 14, 2000: Renee Montagne lets one fly after coming back in from a traffic break.

April 8, 2001: Steve Inskeep drops an N-Bomb while chatting with Juan Williams.

October 1, 2002: Sound engineers mistakenly patch in 90 seconds of an intern yelling at his girlfriend over the phone.

January 23, 2003: Producers belatedly discover that a Carl Kasell segment aired that morning was actually Carl saying the word "vagina" over and over again for 72 seconds, something they hadn't been able to discern through his frothing saliva and flapping jowls.

March 17, 2004: Frank Deford commentary entitled "St. Patrick was a Moustache-Riding Drunk" is later replaced by something with a little more punch.

December 10, 2005: One solid hour of Steve and Renee playing Nerf basketball in the studio with the microphones turned on.

Posted by hb at October 27, 2006 03:17 PM