Everything Considered

I laughed when I read that a new book credits Southern politeness for the survival of all Flight 1549 passengers on the Hudson River. The premise of Miracle on the Hudson: The Survivors of Flight 1549 is that passengers' Southern hospitality brought out the best in humanity and created an environment that led to a calm, orderly evacuation of everyone.

What a load.

The Observer's Tommy Tomlinson does a good job of debunking the Southern hospitality argument in this… Continue

It's easy to find reporters who think their lives are more interesting than the people they cover.

You run into it a lot in this business, especially from the TV newsies. They love to insert themselves into a story. Many live for the clever stand-up. Face time!

But lately, NPR has had me screaming at my radio. Last week, Margot Adler produced a story for All Things Considered about her beloved C… Continue

As I've said before, I don't dismiss Jeremy Mayfield's insistence that he's never used meth. There are too many problems with NASCAR's drug suspension of the driver. For one, its drug-testing program is a joke. Now, we've learned that NASCAR's star witness – Mayfield's stepmother – was… Continue

Quote-of-the-week: “For a sport that promotes itself as being red, white and blue, these rules are almost Stalinist. It's un-American.”
- Charles Yesalis, a Penn State professor and drug policy adviser to sports organizations, on NASCAR's drug policy.

Yesalis made that comment to the Charlotte Observer in a Sunday story that raises many questions about the fairness of NASCAR's drug-testing policy.

The im… Continue

You never know what's going to garner response from listeners. The one thing I have learned in this business is that people often respond to stories you least expect to get any reaction.

An example of this occurred Monday. Our Morning Edition host, Scott Graf, read a sad story about the founder of the Charlotte Business Journal dying from a bee sting. In subsequent references, the "bee" was referred to as a yellowjacket. In fact, a yellowjacket was responsible for the sting.

However, ye… Continue