The weekly NPR radio show This American Life made headlines last month for retracting a story it aired about Apple’s manufacturing problems in China. One of the reasons this was such a big story was because TAL, as it’s known, had a history of doing excellent, detailed, long-form journalism. So when it had to pull back from the Apple story, well, that was big news.
Well, the week after it spent the entire episode retracting the Apple story, it’s back with a hallmark example of the kind of work that’s made it such a popular show — a somewhat depressing inside-the-Beltway look at fundraising in U.S. politics.
If you’ve never heard TAL before, this is a great introduction:
Broadcast: Mar-30-12For anyone who has ever heard the term “Washington insider” and felt outside — we are with you. So this week, we go inside the rooms where the deals get made, to the actual moment that the checks change hands — and we ask the people writing and receiving the checks what, exactly, is the money buying?
[If you’re curious for more of this kind of stuff, you might want to check out this post, from last year, I did about another TAL story: “Judge calls journalist “character assassin” while 22-year-old spends 2 years in jail for getting caught with 2 painkillers.”