NPR replies to 40,000 complaints about Codrescu broadcast
Originally printed in Current, May 27, 1996
Since Andrei Codrescu's Christmastime commentary offended many fundamentalist Christians, NPR has received 40,000 complaints from listeners. And it has answered every one of them, Board Chairman Carl Matthusen announced at the annual NPR affiliates meeting May 16 [1996]. He commended staff for being conscientious, and said that no company "can produce the amount of material we produce at NPR and not have some problems."
Though the commentary was "not our most shining moment at National Public Radio," Matthusen said, it would be unfair of religious communities to judge the network on the basis of one mistake. "That would be like judging the religious community based on Jim Bakker. It does not make sense." He also pointed out that NPR is a rarity for staffing a full-time religious news desk.
Matthusen said new controls are in place to prevent future difficulties. Managing Editor Bruce Drake told Current later that the network has always had active oversight processes, but staff now have increased "emphasis" on adhering to them. Drake checks the roster of commentaries daily and asks to hear any that might need his attention. Producers are expected to bring potentially hot commentaries to his notice. Drake didn't hear the Codrescu commentary prior to its airing. "In any organization, sometimes things slip through," he says.
In the past year, NPR has added more right-wing commentators to its line-up, and has tried for a better geographical balance, Drake said.
In response to Codrescu's brief Dec. 19 commentary on All Things Considered, the Christian Coalition mobilized its members and adherents around the issue; many of the letters NPR received were printed postcards. The coalition also used the controversy to renew its call for Congress to end federal funding of public broadcasting.
NPR apologizes for Codrescu's remark that 'crossed a line of tolerance'Originally published in Current, Jan. 15, 1996
NPR commentator Andrei Codrescu was not exactly penitent about a remark that offended fundamentalist Christians over the holidays, although NPR has apologized for his comment.
Meanwhile the Christian Coalition vows it will intensify efforts to push Congress for an end to federal support for public broadcasting.
Codrescu's Dec. 19 All Things Considered commentary derided the belief, held by some Christians, that at world's end all those who are "saved" will ascend immediately to Heaven and the rest of the population will suffer Armageddon and wind up in Hell. Reading from a pamphlet he was handed on the street, Codrescu said that believers in the "rapture" predict that more than 4 million people will depart in less than a fifth of a second. He went on to say that "The evaporation of 4 million who believe this crap would leave the world an instantly better place."
"As soon as it aired, we realized it shouldn't have made it to air," says NPR spokesperson Kathy Scott. "We started working on an apology before we got any reaction."
Offended listeners, meanwhile, phoned the Christian Coalition for NPR's telephone number, according to spokesperson Monica Hildebrandt. "They were ticked off" by the "extremely bigoted" remarks, she says. "It's one thing to debate a particular religious belief. . . It's another thing to say the world would be a better place without the people who have that belief. That's way beyond the bounds of tolerance. That's hatred."
NPR declined Christian Coalition head Ralph Reed's request for two minutes of air time "to offer an opposing view," according to a Coalition press release. "We turned them down [because] we felt it was a mistake in the first place," Scott says. "We weren't stating a position. You can't put a counterpoint to a mistake."
NPR aired some listener letters the day after the commentary, but did not air an apology until Dec. 22, three days after the commentary. Scott says it was delayed because certain key decision makers were out of town, and because the network had "the usual debate" about how to word the mea culpa.
The apology expressed regrets for the "vulgar term" Codrescu used and his statement that the world would be better off without the believers. "Those remarks offended listeners and crossed a line of taste and tolerance that we should have defended with greater vigilance," NPR said. "We spoke with Andrei who told us he would like to apologize for what--with hindsight--he regards as an inappropriate attempt at humor. It's one he regrets. And so does NPR."
But Codrescu says he's sorry only for using the word "crap." "I had no idea they were going to apologize on my behalf. They said some staff members were upset and I said I was sorry I had upset them and didn't intend to."
Codrescu says he's mad at NPR, but will probably continue doing pieces. "It's a natural reaction to try and come back and say something even more offensive," he says, "but I don't know ... ."
ATC Executive Producer Ellen Weiss says the incident will not sever NPR's relationship with Codrescu, whose commentaries have continued to air since the holiday piece.
Codrescu has received many angry phone calls and other communiques from people "who think I said something I didn't."
"I'm probably one step away from a 'fatwa' by the Christian Coalition," he says, referring to an Islamic sentencing for heresy.
The Coalition's press release charges that "Codrescu described the return of Christ and Christian theology (First Thessalonians 4:17) as 'crap.' " But Codrescu says his comments were specifically about the rapture, which he guesses is a "minority" belief.
Hildebrandt says most evangelical Christians, who number in "the millions," believe in "some form" of the rapture.
The Coalition, which claims 1.7 million members, had already stated a position on funding of public broadcasting. In May 1995 it issued a "Contract with the American Family" that called for an end to federal money for CPB and the arts and humanities endowments.
Web page revised May 28, 1996
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