A Grain of Salt?

Jim Romenesko has a nice recap of Ira Glass' appearance on Reddit's AMA, during which he was asked if there was a policy change at “This American Life” after Mike Daisey’s Apple sweatshops piece was retracted -- and how this affects the show's biggest star, David Sedaris.

The answer is yes -- now they professionally factcheck everything, including the personal essays -- but how to handle Sedaris remains a challenge: Glass said:

We have three choices:

1) assume the audience is smart enough to tell; 

2) label his stuff on the air as possibly non-factual (hard to figure out a way to do that which doesn’t kill the fun but there probably is one); 

3) fact check him the way the New Yorker does.

I honestly don’t know where I stand on this one. When I pose the Q to public radio audiences, at speeches and events, they overwhelmingly vote #1, with a vociferous tiny minority who feel strongly in favor of #2.

Having just finished writing a book of memoirish essays myelf, I vote for option 1.

What do you guys think?


UPDATE As a Facebook friend writes:

  (Click for maximum hilarity!)