I suppose that in the truest sense all storytellers do what they do for self promotion, after all, they volunteer to get on the stage to tell their story for the first time and if their audience response is positive and the staff enjoyed their presentation, they might be asked back.
I agree with bks about questioning agendas of self promotion and/or self-aggrandizement through a public performance about a tragedy.
About a tragedy he was tangentially connected to? But bks wasn't questioning any agenda but NPR's. Overall, he said the story felt to him to be "mawkish." You felt that way too, Cordelia?
In my experience, those who have suffered some traumatic experience, even if their connection is peripheral, do much better when they have an audience to listen to the story that caused their trauma.
Could he have made up the bit about knowing the abused child? Sure, but I don't think that's the case here.
Simply put, I disagree with bks and I don't believe he was questioning DeWolf's agenda, and don't believe that the story "verged" on self-aggrandizement.
That was a very disturbing and moving story. But I don't care for this "creative" form of atonement. It verges on self-aggrandizement, and the performative aspects risk giving the story an unreal quality. In no way should anyone profit or see their status raised from participation in human horror, particularly when the putative point of the story is that the person telling it believes they failed to act in the presence of profound need (arguable from the re-telling, but certainly possible). I detected something mawkish in it, and doing a bit of quick research I see it's an NPR initiative which, frankly, squares closely with its aesthetic style. Media therapy.
Anything that can draw an audience will be monetized. But what's the goal of this?
I'm open to hearing other points of view, of course.
The story to me was real and heart-wrenching, and not in any way "unreal." Please explain what you felt was mawkish.
You seem to be saying no one should ever be allowed to tell of some tragedy they were peripherally connected to because they will be accused of self-aggrandizement for simply sharing their tale. Were that the case, our libraries would not have half the books they do.
David Kaczynski should not speak publicly? Yeah, right.