In any case, TAL has since made clear that it will not represent a story as non-fiction when it cannot fully verify the truth of that story. It's an admirable policy, especially for a show that essentially tells stories. Still, This American Life often attmepts to explore aspects of the news, sometimes exposing scandals in 60 Minutes-like fashion, so telling the truth seems to be an inherent, critical aspect of the show.
This morning, an article in the Washington Post wondered about other segments that frequently appear on TAL (and other NPR shows) from humorist and author David Sedaris. Sedaris tells semi-funny stories in a humorous way to get laughs. (Apparently, that's what comedians do.) Along the way, he makes up some things to give the stories a funnier edge. When the Post asked TAL host Ira Glass about all this,
In an interview, Glass said no one at his program was concerned about Sedaris before the Daisey episode. “We just assumed the audience was sophisticated enough to tell that this guy is making jokes and that there was a different level of journalistic scrutiny that we and they should apply,” he said.Personally, that seems fair enough. After all, Sedaris just wants find humor in unusual situations. He's not really targeting anyone. And, from the pieces of his that I've heard, the biggest target of his humor is himself, as he highlights the ridiculous situations ni which he finds himself.
But the Daisey debacle has brought about a reassessment. Glass said three responses are under discussion: fact-checking each of Sedaris’s stories to ensure their accuracy, labeling them to alert the audience that the stories contain “exaggerations” or doing nothing.
| Shalom Auslander |
Auslander, another fairly regular contributor to the show, regularly tells stories about his own childhood - and victimhood. As an Orthodox Jew, I find his pieces far less entertaining, as they target not Auslander himself, but Judaism - and specifically Orthodox Judaism. He ridicules and mocks the religiosity and piousness of the figures from his childhood, clearly still angry about an abusive father who mistreated him (as he tells it).
Take, for example, a story that was recently rerun on TAL about a teacher of Auslander's from grade school who told him that his name (Shalom) was in fact one of God's names, and therefore forced him to place any item with his name on it in the Shaimos box, designated for burial. As he tells it,
Life with God's name was more difficult than I imagined. I was annoyed with God for being so selfish with them all. He had 71 other names. I couldn't see why he'd mind so much if I used just one. I didn't want to tell God how to do his job, but I wondered if maybe there weren't bigger things for him to be worrying about than who was using one of his six dozen names without permission. Isn't this, I wondered, what led to holocausts?If this story is true, it is indeed fantastic: lunch bags and underpants in Shaimos? Any Orthodox Jew knows that we do indeed treat items of religious value with respect. We place matters with Torah writings in a special box designated for burial. But Jewish law limits these items to Torah articles, old books, worn Tefillin of significant religous value. To extend this practice to underpants would indeed be as ridiculous and foolish as Auslander implies that they were, making the Orthodoxy of his youth sound as silly and worthy of abandonment as he continues to demand that it was (and is).
The Shaimos Box in the prayer hall filled quickly: my homework, my test papers, my what-I-did-this-summer, even my Highlights For Children. And buried at the bottom of the box, a pair of underpants my mother had written my name on with permanent marker.
And yet I wonder. Notice the nuance in the story, which begins with a subtle, but critical description of Rabbi Breyer, the villain of the tale:
Eli said that his big brother said that Rabbi Breyer once broke a student's nose by slapping the student's face. Dov said that his big brother said that Rabbi Breyer had once broken a student's arm when he was dragging the student from the room for talking during prayers. Rabbi Breyer was the scariest rabbi in the whole yeshiva.Auslander doesn't verify hat the rebbe broke the students' arms. The kids "said" that he had. Yet, he dangles these rumors as facts. Did the kids ever really say that, or did Auslander make it up? What does it mean for a rabbi to have "angry" hands? Of course his beard was "rough". Has Auslander ever met a rabbi with a "smooth beard" and "Gentle hands"?
He was a stocky man, wide as the doorway, with a long, rough beard and thick, angry hands, and everyone trembled that first day of third grade when he stomped heavily into the classroom, wrote his name on the blackboard, and shouted at Akiva for slouching in his seat. Nobody spoke during class. Nobody doodled in the margins of their prayer books. And when, at the end of the first test at the end of the first week, Rabbi Breyer shouted, "Pencils down," it was as if the commandment had come from God himself.
Listening to his story, I had a difficult time believing that it was actually, factually true. It seemed much more like a composite story, gathering facts from different stories and characters from different parts of his life, to weave a unique tapestry worthy of publication. Was there a rebbe in his school who slapped students? I'm sure there was. But did he really make Auslander put everything with his name in it in Shaimos? I highly, highly doubt it.
I wonder whether Glass or the many producers of This American Life ever thought to verify the details in Auslander's stories. Because, unlike Sedaris, whose lighthearted stories are pointed squarely at himself, Auslander still clearly has his former faith in his sights.
And he shoots to kill.
