Solution Euphoria

I work in public radio, and have done so for about 25 years. There’s a communication system called the squawk channel; it’s a direct audio line from NPR headquarters in DC to every member station in the US. When there’s breaking news, or some sudden change in the live programming being fed, someone in DC will pick up what sounds like a telephone, and will say “Attention stations…” and will then relay whatever message.

My dream job is to be that person on the analog-sounding phone line, speaking to every NPR member station at once, to attentive board-ops, weary and jaded announcers with minutes remaining on their shifts, and empty rooms that would sit silently if not for the persistent hum of gear. I just love squawk channel messages, they’re so rigid in form yet so dynamic in delivery. It’s live, like a tiny radio program with a tiny audience, delivered exclusively to the few people in the country who would even comprehend the shorthand and lingo being spoken down the line.

Of course “squawk channel announcer” isn’t its own job. Surely those messages are coming from reporters, editors, interns, ops-people… perhaps at the last minute and chosen for their proximity to that phone receiver, or whatever it is. I imagine it like the Batphone, the one that Commissioner Gordon had, who would just pick up a phone and be automatically connected to the Batcave.

I asked ChatGPT to render an image of what I might imagine it looking like. After 3 attempts I asked it to do so in the style of a ’90s-era comic book. After 3 more attempts I managed to get a result with correct spelling, and a correct character account for “NPR.” As I explained to the friendly robot, the ‘l’ in ‘public’ does a lot of heavy lifting for that word.