After my e-mail yesterday, someone wrote back:
I like to check things out before I forward them to friends, or write to
ombudsmen. Not that I think NPR did an adequate job of covering the
protests, to the contrary, I think it was at best a sophomoric, trite, sound
bite, but this is what I've found regarding the times of their stories.
I don't know about the minutes of actual broadcast on NPR, but the NPR
website that your story below gives, up loads a war protest story 4:56.8
long, and a story on the queens trousers that's 3:52.5. They also ran a
story about Turkey's effort to divert war clocking in at 3:46.6.
While I can complain about them in comparison to Pacifica, or the
inadequacy of their demonstration coverage in general, I cannot send your
complaint about story length to the NPR ombudsman.
Please take care, lest our small miscalculations be used as examples of
our lack of integrity.
And someone else wrote:
I haven't been all that enamored of NPR's coverage, but you misrepresent them
in this email. They did give five minutes of coverage, not two. Why
exaggerate the lack of coverage?
Sorry for the oversight on my part. I should have looked into this before
sending it out. And thanks to all of you for pointing this out.
Scott
