Interns Often Make Mistakes, But So Do Senior Producers Now and Then
National Public Radio’s news program “All Things Considered” reads letters from listeners about recent stories:
Correspondent 1: An avalanche of listeners called, wrote letters or sent e-mails in response to our report last week about the new soft drink named Dyspepsia. Even NPR’s ombudsman — who usually has better things to do — got into this one. Believe you me, if you want us to do penance because of an error, all you have to do is alert the ombudsman. Talk about a bulldog. Yikes!
Correspondent 2: Our first error was reporting that Coca Cola is bringing out a new soft drink named Dyspepsia. That is incorrect. The correct info is that a startup beverage company named New Age Libations and based in Athens, Georgia plans to introduce a new high caffeine drink named Pepsia.
Correspondent 1: Unfortunately, one of the interns who prepared a script for us to read on the air inadvertently type the letters “d” and “y” and “s” in front of the new drink’s name, Pepsia. The result was the word “dyspepsia”. How did this occur? Who knows? Let’s just say that when interns are around, stuff happens.
Correspondent 2: We wish the whole matter had stopped there. But somehow — we still don’t know how — someone else wrote in the script that dyspepsia is a type of bone cancer. It would be nice if we could blame that error on one of the interns, but unfortunately we can’t. All signs seem to point to a senior producer making that change just before we went on the air.
Correspondent 1: So just to sum up and leave no error uncorrected, here is a summary of this correction. There is no new drink coming to market named Dyspepsia. The correct name is Pepsia. The Coca Cola people have nothing to do with any of this. And dyspepsia is a fancy word for indigestion, not the name of a bone cancer.
Correspondent 2:: We want to hear from you. Call our listener response telephone number or send us your e-mails. Be sure to tell us how to pronounce your name, unless your name is Jones or Smith, which we know how to pronounce. However, if your name is Smith but the “i” is long and your name is really pronounced as “Sm-i-i-i-th’, please tell us that. Sorry, our producers don’t allow us to pronounce double last names.