This is On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield. And now, for some letters. We had hundreds of responses to my interview with NPR ombudsman Alicia Shepard on the subject of using the word “torture” to describe waterboarding. The nearly universal sentiment was outrage at a news organization’s embracing of the Bush administration euphemism, “enhanced interrogation techniques.” But the vast majority of commenters attribute NPR’s policy not to excess caution, but to collaboration, conspiracy and/or cowardice. This comment from Al Gomes [sp?] was typical: “Once again the mask slips to reveal the hidden hand at work. National Pentagon Radio says it all.” On a less inflammatory matter, Howard Rowe [sp?] wrote, “On the segment of your program last weekend that dealt with NASA and the media, you stated that John Glenn was the, quote, ‘first human being to orbit the Earth.’ Wrong. That honor went to Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. Glenn was the first American to orbit the Earth. Later, in the segment on Nikita Khrushchev’s tour of the U.S., you identified the Iowa farmer who hosted Khrushchev as Randall Garst. Wrong again. His name was Roswell Garst.” Yes, Mr. Rowe, I got both of those things wrong, but why single out those errors? I also pronounced China’s ethnic Uighurs as “weejers” and misidentified the first Eisenhower/Khrushchev Summit as the First U.S./Soviet Summit. Oy - sorry. If you locate other screw-ups or just want to share, you can do so by commenting at wnyc.org or email us at Onthemedia@wnyc.org. [MUSIC UP AND UNDER]
