Texas Public Radio volunteer Victor Martinez, left, never served in Iraq but said he did to score a meeting with David Greene, right. (Photo: Nathan Cone, Texas Public Radio)
• Texas Public Radio in San Antonio has retracted a story about a station volunteer who claimed to have listened to homemade CDs of Morning Edition while on a tour of duty in Iraq. While answering phones for TPR during its April pledge drive, U.S. Army veteran Victor Martinez discovered that ME co-host David Greene would visit the station. Martinez fabricated a story about his wife mailing him recordings of Greene’s “soothing voice” while he served in Iraq during a 2012 deployment.
TPR reporter Eileen Pace filed a story May 13 about Martinez presenting Greene with a military service coin, but the station later discovered that he had lied about serving in Iraq and his homemade Morning Edition CDs. His ruse fooled TPR President Joyce Slocum, who arranged the meeting with Greene, but he was caught when the station realized that the U.S. pulled out of Iraq in 2011.
Pace’s retraction was posted Monday; the original remained on TPR’s site as of Monday, however.
• NPR’s latest project is aimed at recent grads and anyone looking for an inspirational pick-me-up. As part of its NPR Ed coverage unit, NPR has compiled 300 of the best commencement speeches dating to colonial times in a searchable format.
• A New York Times profile dubbed Sandra Tsing Loh, weekly contributor to KPCC in Pasadena, Calif., “a perpetual darling of the ever-beleaguered Los Angeles intelligentsia.” Her new memoir and one-woman show are titled The Madwoman in the Volvo: My Year of Raging Hormones and deal with her experience with menopause.
• The Peabody Awards ceremony took place May 19 in New York, with several public media organizations among the winners. Jeffrey Jones, director of the awards, penned a Variety op-ed asserting, among other points, that “public media still matter.” “Public radio and television continue to address important social and political issues,” Jones wrote. “This year, such stories included gun violence, drugs and imprisonment, veterans, race and cultural heritage, warfare, sexual violence, health crises, international diplomacy, community, education, and sexual equality.” The ceremony was hosted by This American Life‘s Ira Glass.