Tuesday, May 06, 2008

A Small Vent



Why do listeners feel compelled to call or email their "corrections" to us? Do they really think we don't know when we make a mistake? I assure you, when I slip up on the air I am the first one to know and cringe.

I got an email from a listener this morning correcting me on my pronunciation of a particular word. I knew I mispronounced it as soon as it came out of my mouth. I didn't need him to inform me. In fact, I suspect he's mispronounced words on more than one occasion in his life. But no one was broadcasting his mistakes to millions of people.

Sometimes I just want to challenge the complainers to come in and do my job for one day so that I can point out all of their mistakes. It's not easy to be on the air for four hours, reading dozens of announcements, timing all your words to a clock and making it all sound smooth and pleasant -- all without making a single mistake.

1 comment:

AyDubb said...

How rude! Maybe you should do a news story on it. That is, how random listeners have no life to speak of and have nothing better to do with themselves than to write letters/emails chastise others for pronouncing things "incorrectly". In other words, writing to tell others how to do their job even though they themselves have no experience at doing whatever it is they are criticizing. Either that or write the person back and have them come down to the station to try out your job...then you could write a letter to them and criticize their pronounciation skills.