Turn In A Friend

This American Life (and the rest of NPR) gets all its money from donations. Lately, they’ve been using a “turn in a friend” gimmick to get more pledges. If you know someone who listens to NPR, but doesn’t donate, you can turn them in. TAL host Ira Glass then personally calls a number of the slackers and confronts them about why they haven’t pledged.

The funniest part is that Glass doesn’t stop at scolding the listeners he calls. He asks them to explain their behavior, as if he’s interviewing them for his show. Naturally, they’re embarrassed and befuddled.

But all their befuddlement means is that their relationship to Ira Glass has changed. They probably feel the same way I do, which is to say, that NPR is a sort of naturally occurring phenomenon, like rain. Logically, I know that this is not at all true, but that’s how it feels.