Forgot: the Sunday preemtion.

Preempted ATC on Sunday afternoon for a speech by David Barsamian on "Targeting Iran".

The phone rang off the hook in the control room, starting before I even announced that ATC would return next week. People tuned in at their accustomed times expecting NPR, and wound up getting hit with an hour of Pacifica-style broadcasting, complete with allegations of war crimes against sitting (ahhem) so-called (gurgle) presidents (cough) and the like. It probably didn't help that last week was the pledge drive, and the week before that Sunday ATC got preempted for a Republican Candidates' Forum. Too many weeks in a row with no Sunday evening newscast makes the listeners restless.

Like it or not, people depend on ATC because it's, well, dependable. And listeners tend to tune in at the same time, over time, for the same sort of thing. And they may like variety, but damn it -- come the time they expect to hear headlines spoken by certain people in a certain way, after three weeks of interruptions for other things, they just get tired and desperately want things to go back to "normal".

What to make of it all? I'm not sure. I've made my opinion known around the station what might have been done better regarding the preemption; but I have no regrets whatsoever about having aired Barsamian. Not for a split second. It was a totally important speech, with *tons* of good information most listeners might not have known beforehand.

Marcos, the outgoing program director (he's been with the station for about twenty years) forwarded me some voicemails he'd gotten -- apparently evenly divided between "how dare you preempt NPR for this crazy hippy" and "this is more like it -- let's hear this guy every week instead of NPR's talking heads".

I guess it just goes to show you're doing a passable job gathering news if you piss *everyone* off equally! This sure ain't a line of business you go into if you're out to win popularity contests.

Maybe I should quit doing news and just be a food, fashion, garden, and interior design critic for the station. (I bet it would be easier to find a grant for that than for journalism.)

I could say more, but for once in my life, I'll think better of saying *more* than too much, and *just* leave it right there, having *just* said too much. :^)