Some listeners didn't appreciate the use of language on NPR over the past week or so.
A Malapropism on NPR
A newscast report on June 2 from Sacramento referred to a move in the California legislature to legalize same-sex marriages. The report shocked some listeners such as Galen Pletcher from Potsdam, N.Y. It wasn't the subject matter, but a malapropism:
Gay marriage advocates were hoping that California would be the first state where legislators considered marriage for same-sex couples. Openly gay assembly members, Mark Leno of San Francisco and Jackie Goldberg of Los Angeles, pushed for equanimity with heterosexual couples. But Riverside County Republican Ray Haynes says the question of same-sex marriage is not the legislature's to decide...
Listeners, hearing this, certainly might have lost their equanimity. What the reporter meant to say was equality.
Mr. Pletcher asks:
Aren't there editors in radio? Aren't there slightly hostile, at best constitutionally cranky, souls who read (or listen to) stuff before it is made public, going over it for just the kinds of howlers I mention above? If not, shouldn't there be? If there is no one to correct correspondents, for one thing, they will go on to perpetrate their mistakes again and again. But more, it lessens the quality of broadcasts to allow them to contain this kind of thing at all. I realize no one is perfect, but language is our medium here, and we should be right about the language we use.
Sentence Fragments?
While he had my attention, Mr. Pletcher also took NPR to task for frequently using a dangling introductory clause that does not modify the subject of the sentence, for example:
...using "begging the question" a phrase from logic that means "assuming the point at issue," to mean "inviting the question" or "forcing us on to ask". These... happen a lot on NPR. (I have no idea whether the rate is greater or less than other radio sources, since NPR is all I listen to!)
In fairness to NPR, I think the "dangling introductory clause" Mr. Pletcher refers to are sentence fragments that a few NPR editors and reporters employ in a conversational and "radiophonic" way.
These are colloquial patterns of "writing for the ear." They are conversational devices that, in my opinion, sound just fine on the radio because the meaning is clear. They are fine as long as they don't get out of hand... Or overused... In every story...
I agree with Pletcher that NPR overuses and misunderstands the phrase "begging the question."
Potty Humor
From J. Rowe:
Not to sound like a "Pollyanna Prude", but I could have gone all day without hearing the word "fart" used in the interview with author Barry Yourgrau, this past Sunday (Weekend Edition, May 29th).
We listen to the puzzle, on the way to church, and even though I know my young daughters have heard that word, before, I'd just expect NOT to hear it on NPR. I'd expected a clever way to explaining WHAT the super hero did, as opposed to just using the word....
Aside from that, keep up the fine work. Thanks!
The interview was with an author who has penned a work aimed at the 9-to-12-year-old set, for whom flatulence is, of course, an unending source of humor. It's not quite in the same league as Harry Potter, and I knew I would receive a few complaints as soon as I heard the interview. But even if 9 year olds (and even a few older listeners) found it amusing, I think the listeners of NPR can take it.
Janet Who?
Phil Wilke of Lawrence, Kansas, objected to NPR's Steve Inskeep's reference to an important book about journalists and journalism on June 2:
Prefacing a question, the normally solid Inskeep referenced "a famous essay by Janet Malcolm about how journalists use sources." First, how many members of your audience have read Malcolm's essay, and what does the reference add to the context of the interview? Nothing. Second, the reference just gives Inskeep a chance to (show) his "inside baseball" knowledge of the arcane, academic workings of journalism. What did your listeners get out of that? Nothing.
Inskeep's throwaway line was in an interview about sources and referred to a now famous book called The Journalist and the Murderer by Janet Malcolm. Malcolm's most famous quote excoriates the culture of journalism and what she believes is its tendency to dishonesty:
Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible. He is a kind of confidence man, preying on people's vanity, ignorance, or loneliness, gaining their trust and betraying them without remorse.
It was an important observation when it was published back in 1990 and it still has resonance today. Inskeep was right, in my opinion to mention Ms. Malcolm's relevant work but it needed more context, as per Mr. Wilke's complaint. I am delighted that Wilke now knows about Malcolm's important contribution to journalism.
Inskeep's response:
It's so flattering to be described as "normally solid" that I would hardly quibble with the rest of Mr. Wilke's statement.
Multiple Sources
Wilke also complained about a June 1 interview on All Things Considered by NPR's Michele Norris:
In Wednesday's story about Deep Throat, Michele Norris interviewed her former boss (which ought to be prohibited) at The Washington Post, Ben Bradlee. Discussing stories taken at face value, Bradlee said..."When the President tells you something, you take it as fact". Well, his own experience in Watergate should have steered him otherwise. And Norris missed an opportunity to ask, "Such as when President Bush said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction?"
Norris thinks otherwise:
As a former Post employee I am well acquainted with the newspaper's policies on multiple sourcing. I think (having) that (knowledge) helped the interview and served the listeners well.
As for missing an opportunity to tie Watergate to WMD, Norris also thinks Wilke may have a point but:
We wanted to keep the focus of the interview on Ben Bradlee's perspective on Mark Felt's role as Deep Throat, rather than to connect that event to today's political scene.
I think Norris was right in both cases. There may be some political and cultural resonance that might link Watergate and WMD, but that is a conjecture best left to the "punditocracy" and not to reporters.
A Quibble of Ombudsmen?
Finally, a request: some colleagues have asked what should one call a group of ombudsmen? Perhaps the listeners might suggest something like:
· A quibble of ombudsmen?
· An adjudication of ombudsmen?
· An intervention of ombudsmen?
· A complaint of ombudsmen?
Clever responses will be shared and posted on the ONO (Organization of News Ombudsmen) Web site (see Web resources, below). The cleverest might even end up on an ONO T-shirt for next year's conference (with appropriate sourcing, of course).
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