Transcript
Letters
December 15, 2001
BROOKE GLADSTONE: We're back with On the Media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.
BOB GARFIELD: And I'm Bob Garfield. And here are a few of your letters. A while back on OTM reporter Michelle Briar [sp?] covered the elections pitting Valerie Harper against Melissa Gilbert for presidency of the Screen Actors Guild. However Michelle satirically portrayed the election as a contest between the actresses' best-known TV characters, Rhoda Morgenstern and Laura Ingels [sp?].
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Not everybody thought the piece was funny. Dennis Michael of Monrovia, California thought we minimized the importance of the elections and the guild itself. "I recognize that the attempt was to tell a humorous story," Dennis writes. Since it fell flat as a pancake, On the Media failed at that ambition as well as failing journalistic responsibility with this piece.
BOB GARFIELD:Michael Richardson agreed wholeheartedly with guest Brant Houston who on last week's show said that the government's response to terrorism, ordering the destruction of CD-Roms full of information in public libraries across the country was, in a word, overkill.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Michael writes: "It reminds me of the women being scared into having both breasts removed in order to avoid getting cancer!"
BOB GARFIELD:And finally a confession about my interview last week with Kent Braithwaite, the voracious Amazon.com book reviewers who just happened to mention his debut mystery novel in every review.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Newsweek journalist Jeff Giles also wrote an article on Braithwaite's shenanigans 6 weeks ago. One anonymous listener noticed this and wrote "Maybe I'm cynical but I find it impossible to believe that NPR just coincidentally stumbled on the work of Amazon's 245th-most-popular-customer-reviewer as well."
BOB GARFIELD:Well, Mr. Anonymous, maybe you are cynical! But-- you're also right. It turns out OTM's staff did learn about Braithwaite from Newsweek.com. Of course I'm just a blow-dry and a magnificent voice so I wasn't informed, but our apologies to Jeff Giles for not giving him due credit.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: I thought your hair naturally fluffed like that.
BOB GARFIELD: Well, it doesn't.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:[LAUGHS] If you want to remain anonymous, then when you e-mail us at onthemedia@wnyc.org, don't tell us where you live and how to pronounce your name, but we prefer that you do--
BOB GARFIELD: So we can track you down and destroy you. [MUSIC TAG]