This American Life

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Amy O'Leary <amyoleary () gmail com>
Date: September 19, 2005 8:02:45 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: This American Life
Reply-To: amyoleary () gmail com


Hi Dave,

I am a producer at "This American Life" - I know Ron Avitzur, who is
on your email list and he forwarded me a question about censorship on
our show.  Here is what I wrote to him:


We weren't censored, and NPR doesn't actually have any physical
ability to censor us.  Here's how it works:  we make the show in
Chicago, and then it gets sent to our distributor, PRI (Public Radio
International).  They send it out to hundreds of independent local
public stations who choose if and when they want to broadcast the
show.  Sometimes local stations swap shows around, or run breaking
news instead -- so we can never be sure if something is going to air
on a particular local station on a particular weekend, but generally
things keep to schedule.

Where does NPR fit in the chain?  They're their own content producer
(like us) and distributor (like PRI) so they are also putting stuff
out there that local stations can choose to air.

From the story you attached below, it sounds like a local station
switched shows in the middle of a broadcast.  There could be lots of
reasons why they did this, and I couldn't tell you for certain.   Only
that station's program director could explain it.  But what I can tell
you is that our Katrina show aired throughout most of the country
without a problem, and we got an avalanche of feedback from listeners
who heard it and responded to it.

There was another rumor - about the same show - that we were censored
on a story about FEMA.  This is also not true.  We had told stations
that we'd be doing a story about FEMA earlier in the week (so they
could run promos), but we ended up choosing to air more interesting
material with survivors instead.  But since the FEMA story was
promoted, and didn't air, people assumed we were censored.

So, that's what happened.  Hope it clears things up!


Thanks,
Amy O'Leary


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