Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site ucsbcsl.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!sdcsvax!sdcrdcf!trwrb!trwrba!cepu!ucsbcsl!brent From: brent@ucsbcsl.UUCP ( ) Newsgroups: net.jokes Subject: MISTAKS -- Dave Barry Message-ID: <267@ucsbcsl.UUCP> Date: Sat, 6-Apr-85 14:06:47 EST Article-I.D.: ucsbcsl.267 Posted: Sat Apr 6 14:06:47 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 10-Apr-85 03:32:30 EST Organization: U.C. Santa Barbara Lines: 120 Taken from The Fresno Bee ... reprinted without permission ... OK, SO WE MAKE A FEW, LITTLE MISTAKS by Dave Barry It has become increasingly obvious to us members of the news media that you memebers of the public hate us. I've seen subtle - but unmistakable - signs of hstility from my own neighbors: the way they stare at me coldly; the way they fail to return my waves; the way they laugh when they hold me down and set fire to my feet. To a skilled journalist, these little signs add up to hostility, although they would probably mean nothing to the average member of the public. Which leads us to the question: Do we journalists tend to think we're superior? That's a difficult question to answer without using big words, but I'll try: The truth is that we journalists don't believe we're superior to all members of the public. We know there must be intelligent forms of public life out there somewhere, because we see evidence of it, such as electrical motors. But in our jobs as journalists, we never talk to whoever is responsible for these things. No, the peope we talk to are the ones who come barging into our newsrooms to inform us that dentists employed by the Trilateral Commission are putting tiny Communist radio transmitters in the root canals of strategic Americans. And the members of the public who call us up are the ones who are outraged because we left Pisces out of the horoscope. Nobody ever calls us up when we leave something out of an article about, say, Central America. As far as we can tell, the only way our readers would ever read an article about Central America is if thir horoscopes ordered them to. OK, so maybe we in the press do have a condescending attitude toward the public. And perhaps, over the years, we have come to feel we're immune from criticism, thanks to the protection we recieve from the First Ammendment, which states: "Thou shalt not covet thy neigbor's wife." And perhaps, as a result, we're occasionally guilt of getting a few minor facts wrong. But does this justify the current climate of public hostility? What will happen if it continues? Can we survive as a free society if the citizenry turns against its most vital non-governmental information source? These, truly, are rhetorical questions. I am partuicularly disturbed by the recent lawsuit brought against CBS by Gen, William C. Westmoreland, who claims his reputation was damaged by an episode of "60 Minutes" in which Mike Wallace charged that during the Vietnam War, Westmoreland fought on the enemy side and wore a dress. As evidence, Westmoreland's lawyer introduced a segment of CBS videotape on which, in the original, Westmoreland says "Yes, as the war with North Vietnam dragged on, I did sometimes ask myself what in the world we were fighting for," but which, for the actual "60 Minutes" broadcast, was editied so that Westmoreland says: "Yes, ... I did sometimes ... fight ... for ... North Vietnam ... in ... drag." OK, granted, this is an example of a news organization that went a little "too far" to "get the story". But let's not tar all the apples in the barrel with the same can of worms just because of one fly in the ointment. Most newsgathering organizations work hard to bring you the news fairly and accurately, and there are solid, unbiased, practical reasons why they are always getting everything wrong. In the case of television news, the problem is that their equipment is very expensive, so they can afford to have only a couple of crews out there trying to cover the entire broadcast area. This means each crew is very, very busy, doing maybe a half-dozen stories a day, and it's impossible for them to get every little detail right: Anchorperson: Tonight's top story is a report of a very serious chemical spill at the Belcher Highly Toxic Chemicals Corporation. On the scence live with our Mobile Insta Mini Action Color Cam is Lisbeth Mary Sue Perkins. (Closeup of Perkins) Pekins: Todd, I'm standing in front of the Belcher Highly Toxic Chemicals Corporation. (The camera backs up to reveal that Perkins is in fact standing in front of a Dunkin' Donuts.) (Several patrons wave eclairs.) Perkins: Well, I'm off to cover the Reptile Festival. Newspapers have a different problem. Walk into the newsroom of any major daily newspaper, and you'll see a group of people with pasty complexions who do nothing all day but drink coffee and stare at wall clocks that tell them what time it is in Cairo, Hong Kong, etc. These are editors, and they are (a) very insecure, because they have no idea why they're supposed to know what time it is in Cairo, but they're worried that someday there might be a quiz; and (b) very resentful, because while they're stuck inside with the clocks, reporters get to go out and try to get quotations from people whose spouses have just been run over by cement trucks. So when the reporters come in with their stories, the editors go into this caffine-induced hostile nitpicking frenzy wherein they change every single word the reporter wrote. This is aactually good, since reporters get almost everything wrong, anyway. Reporters have the worst handwriting in the universe, plus they never quite hear what you're currently saying because they're always trying to write down what you just said. So they wind up with notes like "Brooks - 2 years, pres. w something (yeast?) $35m. (tangible?)," and they have to try to figure out what on Earth they were thinking when they wrote those notes down. The result is that their stories contain many inaccuracies, only some of which are corrected via random hostile editorial changes. So I'll be the first to admit that we in the news media are not pefect. But would you readers really want another system? Would you want the governement to control the media, the way it does under the Communists, the very same people who are putting transmitters in your root canals? Of course not. Upon thinking about it, you realize that the system we have now is just fine after all. Especially you Capricorns.