The funny thing about National Public Radio is that it takes itself so seriously it doesn’t seem to realize how funny it is.
For starters, it continues to present long interviews with folks — foreign ambassadors, activists from Rangoon, Kamnik, Timbuktu, journalists from Sumatra, Tunis, La Paz — who seem to be able to speak English, but not so clearly that we can understand them much beyond “yes,” “no” and, finally, “You’re welcome.”
Given that radios do not yet come equipped with translation graphics, this makes many of these interviews a complete but comical waste of time. As Popeye said when handed a menu written in Arabic, “I can read writin’ but not when the writin’s written rotten.”
Heck, whatever the subject had to say — be it, “The militia burned down my house and seized my livestock,” or “Today, I will whip the rugs to rid them of dust” — it’s left to the audience’s interpretation and imagination.
Then, my favorites: The authentic-sounding features from all over the world.
The NPR reporter/narrator will begin with something like, “Every morning, little Pooki takes a bucket and walks to the Szcrobisha village square in Horntoot Province, where he draws water to cook the family’s meal.”
At that point, one hears the faint sound of people stirring in a village square — perhaps — followed by the unmistakable sound of water dripping or being poured into a bucket.
Wait a second. Is that for real?
Did the NPR correspondent really follow little Pooki to his village square for water? Are those authentic Szcrobisha village square morning stirrings we hear? Was an NPR microphone actually projected into or near the Szcrobisha village square well to capture the sound of water hitting a bucket?
And what about that village square? Might it be more of a rectangle? An oval?
It sure sounds real. And NPR seems so eager to adorn such pieces with such on-the-scene sounds that we’d be disappointed — and hurt — if they were throw-ons.
My good-faith guess is that we just heard genuine Szcrobisha villagers and genuine Szcrobish water deposited into little Pooki’s bucket.
And yet . . .
Several years ago, I was interviewed on tape by an NPR program host about, if I correctly recall, the effort to bring the Olympic Games to New York City.
The interviewer introduced me, adding that I was speaking by phone from the City Room of the New York Post, which was true; I sat at a desk in a sparsely occupied corner.
The Q & A was going fine, well into what was supposed to be a 10-minute chat, so I figured it was nearly over.
That’s when the NPR man shouted, “Bust it!” I knew that “bust it” means stop; something went wrong. Perhaps there was some technical issue on NPR’s side.
“Aw, geez” he said as if I already knew, “now we’re going to have to start over.”
Why?
“A phone rang.”
A phone rang?
“We could hear a phone ring from your end.”
“Of course you could. I’m speaking from the City Room, just as you said in my intro. Phones ring in City Rooms, and all the time. Shoot, they’d better be ringing.”
“Yeah, but it bruises the interview; it’s disconcerting to listeners.”
“Wait a second,” I told him, “You guys go to Upper Lower Heidi-Ho to fetch a pail of water, to capture the sound of a squeaking barn door, but you’re going to kill this because it includes the background sound of a phone ringing in a New York City newspaper news room?”
Short story, long, we did it again. This time I borrowed an editor’s City Room-side office, closed the door. Again the NPR man introduced me as speaking from the City Room – although now impossibly silent – of the New York Post. Make mine a double, Pooki!