You would be forgiven if at first you thought someone played a clumsy prank, when you saw items saying
that NPR---whose traditions include
a reading (on its Morning Edition program) of the Declaration of
Independence in its entirety on the air every Fourth of July---took to Twitter to tweet Mr. Jefferson's missive,
line by line, at around the time of the broadcast, an apparent first for the network. But you would also be
forgiven if you thought the prank went too far in saying the same items provoked a phalanx of indignant
replies the general drift of which accused NPR of what the precise words of my personal favourite of the
tweets read: "So, NPR is calling for revolution. Interesting way to condone the violence while trying to sound
'patriotic.' Your implications are clear."
My first hint of it was a Facebook post (I use the service primarily to stay in touch with my 24-year-old
son) that sourced a Website completely obscure to me until the post in question. But more than that
single site ran with the story, the runners including ABC News, the
Kansas City Star,
The Hill, the
Houston
Chronicle, the
Milwaukee Journal,
Newsweek, the
Washington Post,
The Week, the
Winnipeg Free Press (whose reporter Melissa Martin
captured a glandular volume of the counter-tweets), and more.
You wonder which is the more astonishing element, the fact that NPR thought fit to tweet perhaps the
single most important of the pre-Constitution founding documents at all; or that enough people were so
witless as to the text of the document that they accused the network of what the aforequoted tweeter
said and then some. "Please stop. This is not the right place," was one of the more benign of the tweets.
I fear the responses if NPR had chosen on the appropriate anniversaries to tweet, line by line, Patrick
Henry's "Give me liberty or give me death" speech, George Washington's farewell, Frederick Douglass's
"Church and Prejudice," Mr. Lincoln's Gettysburg, Mr. Truman's "Doctrine," Gen. MacArthur's farewell, Dr.
King's "Dream," or Mr. Reagan at the Brandenburg Gate. (
Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!)
I managed to track and read a larger number of the tweets than was probably good for my mental health.
A few of the indignant responders thought NPR's Twitter account was hacked. A few others were actual or
alleged supporters of the incumbent president; one such tweeted, "Propaganda is that all you know how?
Try supporting a man who wants to do something about the injustice in this country. #drainingtheswamp."
A few others were anything
but actual or alleged supporters of the incumbent president, and enough
of
them seemed barely to know the Declaration's text. Even the
Post was very careful not to apply the
broad brush in its story headline, "Some Trump supporters thought NPR tweeted ‘propaganda.’ It was the
Declaration of Independence."
Set aside for the moment what you do or don't think about either Mr. Trump or NPR, tempting though
it is to ask the network whether it thinks King George III was a piker compared to King Washington
DC. Ask yourself what it means above and beyond partisanship that a radio network could take to today's
social media, celebrate the anniversary of America's originally proclaimed independence by line-by-
line tweeting of the document proclaiming it, and incur such a rash of ignorance of the document itself.
One is suddenly grateful that NPR chose not to follow up by tweeting line-by-line H.L. Mencken's
pithy
satire of the Declaration. (Well, not really a satire as a clever bid to put the Declaration into more
contemporary American vernacular.) The responses to the actual Declaration were sad enough. Those to
Mr. Mencken's satire might send you to psychotherapy post haste.
In due course, the gentleman whose tweet charged NPR with calling for revolution and condoning its
violence apologised for his ignorance. I'm not entirely convinced that someone doesn't owe him an
apology for mal-educating him. If an intellectually enterprising tweeter should see fit next 21 June to
tweet the Constitution, line by line, on the anniversary of its ratification, to celebrate Mr. Madison's
document, should we fear for our country then, too, when we reflect that there are actually those
among us who would consider it mere partisan mischief?
"The best Tweet storm I can imagine: the Declaration of Independence. This is what Twitter is really
for. Happy 4th to all," wrote one respondent. At least someone got the too-smothered point.
