Winer takes offense at This I Believe plea for funds

Blogger Dave Winer says he submitted an essay to This I Believe, the series airing on NPR's newsmags, and never heard back--until he got an e-mail asking him for a donation. "I poured my heart into the essay, after spending a year thinking about what to write," he writes. "Now I gotta wonder, if I don't send the money, will they consider my essay. Or if I do send the money will they run it?" TIB co-producer Dan Gediman apologized, Winer reports (scroll down), and NPR has tried to distance itself from the whole thing. (Via Romenesko.)