a reporter's lot is not a happy one
There is our Man On The Ground, SOMEWHERE IN SWITZERLAND, and using my amazing Remote Viewing powers from VIN Central high in the Akira Kurosawa Zeta Beam Drome Tri-Sky-Spires (pronounce 5 times fast, let me know how you do), I can see him, and I know what he is thinking and muttering to himself.
Here, I use direct quotation marks: "I filed a beautiful, perfect story. And that asshat on Vleeptron has screwed it up beyond recognition, unforgiveably. How could he do that? I worked so hard. I watched the cable TV for hours starting early Monday morning. I took some notes. How could he do that to me?"
Commence le Lecon 2:
1. I smoke the Havana cigar, you are Vleeptron's Man On The Ground, you file the story, I improve it and make it suitable for Page 1 of the Nightly Five or Six Moons and Dwingeloo-2 Courier-Intelligencer. Editor was under no obligation whatsoever to put it on Page 1, Above the Fold, using the Second Coming of the Saviour headline size. So consider self Lucky.
2. I fix the byline in case Swiss authorities, whose Grosse Macher is this former chemical factory Captain of Industry, wish to examine exactly what Swiss Press Freedom means following Sauer Grapes JA OUI GAE SI victory. Hard to screw with journalists with non-Suisse passports. Not so hard to screw with Helvetian journalists. So consider keeping nomme de plume Berlach for further reports from CH.
3. Havanaraucher Editor habst l'ennui from reporters feeling their beautiful verbiage has been interfered with back at the City Room by smelly old superannuated asshats. Look close, only the last graf is the Editor's Original Addition. (Only miniscule improvements in higher grafs.)
4. YOUR VERSION DID NOT SELL ENOUGH STREET COPIES. Editorial decision was made, after returning with the bag of coffee beans, to Sex It Up -- Nightly Five or Six Moons is, after all, a Tabloid, and proud of it, and proud also of the Readership Interest wherever our fine periodical is sold. At deadline time, the Minister was uncooperatively hiding under an Alp, making his pea-brain and angry self unavailable for Sharing His Feelings about referendum result.
Without actually fabricating words for his mouth to expel, VIN had to do something to keep him in play during these interest-packed hours. You wouldn't understand, you'll grok this all better when you are permanently sitting here in the City Room, and some other Wunderkind is the Man on the Ground. (We liked the dark-tinted one-way mirrors of the speeding stretch limo angle, the suggestion of kinky Affengesselschaft in the back seat, in full view of honest decent Swiss working man and Mrs. working man, though they can't see in. Our Tabloid has used this before.)
Already we learn Morning Racing Final sold out in an hour. If only we had photos -- I will show you lens filter trick which can see right through tinted windows.
5. You didn't tell me swissinfo was hovering over the Swiss media like a vulture, waiting to "review" the media's reportage of the referundum. I could have phoned them and given them the heads-up that there's a new Tabloid in town. VIN's coverage might have been included in the Suisse media wrap-up. Next time we be ready, we phone ahead. You never mentioned swissinfo media coverage in interoffice memos. Also you forgot the Same-Sex vote, and the eruption of the new volcano Jungfrau, killing 40. Try to keep Editor better in the loop in future.
6. Why you not have digital camera for the Affirmatif & Negatif Billboards and spray-paint Graffiti? Is it a Labor Union thing? Somebody told you are a Reporter, never a Photographer? Get a PhD camera -- the automatic digitals which do everything. PhD stands for "Press Here, Dummy."
Nevertheless, Great Job, Berlach!!!! Vleeptron's first swim in the Media Shark Pool for Important Euro Story! Expect a raise! Ah, hell, expect whatever you want! The operative word is: Expect. Call me if the Lion Tamers actually give you something.
Could you get better, schnellster advice and Quicker On-the-Job Training from Journalism School? Of course not, and at J-School, you pay them. Here at VIN, we pay you. Something. What, a big pizza when we come to town or when you come back to the Tri-Sky Spires? How's that for material gain?
Next time we shoot for mention in swissinfo media wrapup. They are not real journalists. I am, and soon you will be. Call the Büro.
posted by Vleeptron Dude | 15:07
2 Comments:
This sordid disgusting icky heisse Potato we bury on Page D-19, deep in the fœtid Comment Sewers flowing far beneath the Strasse von Ciudad Vleeptron.
Where it belongs.
You still don't understand. I am the cigar-smoking Editor. I am supposed to make you sick.
You are the Schweitzermensch On The Ground. You are never permitted to make me sick. There are two Firing Offenses at VIN:
1. Not taking requested digital pictures of the bizzare Short-Lasting Swiss Billboard und Graffiti Forest
2. Making the feisty beloved Superannuated Asshat Editor Unhappy
Tell your pal Jayson there could be a job for him at VIN. VIN is considering starting up a Kinderpage, which will prominently feature (it will run once a month) an Imaginary Wholly Made-Up Fictitious Fairie Tale, Haus- und Kindermarche. For this VIN would be thrilled to pay the usual TRADITIONAL STARTING YOUTH JOURNALISM WAGES where
WAGES > 0
The only condition is that whenever Mr Blair writes the new weekly Fairie Tale, under his already Galaxy-wide Famous Byline, run the line
Official Vleeptron Storyteller of Fairy Tales, also Galactic Trophy Fishing Correspondent & Metric Fish Measurer & Weigher
The Alte Havanaraucher Editor takes a moment to simultaneously weep and vomit.
The boy was addled. Does that translate? Meshugineh. Missing Parts under the Bonnet. Unsinnig. (Danke und Grazcha, Vleeptron Translator Robot!) Crazy as a Vontzen. Prozac gobbler. Rubber Room Resident.
To say I feel very sorry for him ... well, who cares? He doesn't care (does anyone REALLY feel better when Clinton says: "I feel your pain."?), The New York Times doesn't care (those who weren't also fired -- that was a very crowded DOWN elevator that week!). And fuck Accuracy In Media, or the Faux News Fair & Balanced Other Outlets Journalism Analysis Tribunal or Rush Limbaugh. Rush has enough of his own troubles. Fortunately, when there is pain, he has a trash-can full of very effective painkillers.
[Sincerity ON]
[Seriousness Temporarily ON]
Unglaublich / Incredible as this sounds ...
You work on a newspaper (TV EnterNewsment does not count), and from the moment you get the copy boy job, to the moment your fingernails and hair stop growing (24 hours after death) ... YOU WRITE THE TRUTH, THE BEST TRUTH YOU CAN HOOVER UP BEFORE DEADLINE, ALWAYS, EVERY WORD, EVERY STORY.
You don't make shit up. Unless your crazy.
Well, what about the Scoundrels, and Felix Krull, Confidence Man?
There are none. They get caught in two weeks, and escorted by the security guard for a One-Way trip on the DOWN elevator.
What were the Sins and Failings of The NY Times in this sad and ugly mess? Okay, well, a few editors were dopes, or sleeping, or having issues with alcohol, or Oxycontin, or distracted by the two young female reporters Twinki and Yolandi, who liked to do drunk pretzel sex with the editors after deadline. (They are getting Sex Addict Therapy now at the famous Isadora Duncan Clinic, on The Times' generous Private Health Plan.)
Which is, alas, and I am ashamed to say -- because this kind of Affengesselschaft is usually only permitted for Politicians and Clergy -- just sordidly human, le Condition Humaine. You got a Penis, sooner or later you aim it in the Wrong Direction. Ditto the Vagina. (Women are just better at keeping their mouths shut about their Affengesselschaft Ein-Nachts-Stands mit der Wrong Married Man.)
But it is human to be a top-tier editor at the USA's finest newspaper, and get distracted. The next thing you know, your young Lunatic On The Ground is filing Fairy Tales, and you are pressing the SEND button to the Composing Room.
Jayson Blair will never work in newspapers again. Until he starts working in newspapers again. Real bad newspapers. Which just want his byline for Freak Show value. If he is willing to be paraded around ("The Herald presents: The Biggest Pathological Liar in the Media!") like an organ-grinder monkey, that's fine with me.
Only I am pissed off -- as about 25000 of my colleagues -- that people unfamiliar with real newspapers will now think I lie and make all sorts of stuff up. When I am the working newspaperman, I don't lie. I don't make stuff up. Neither do my newspaper reporter friends, or the mean cigar-smoking Editors.
Now everybody thinks we all do.
Guess who loves the Jayson Blair scandal. George Bush. He likes it that the American people should believe Bush more than they should believe The New York Times. And if the NY Times becomes untrusted, the naive will turn around and say: "Now President Bush -- THERE'S someone I can TRUST!"
Sad sad sad (repeat 10,000 times)
After becoming the Greatest Female Movie Star on Earth, Greta Garbo was assigned by the studio to make a light, sophisticated, urbane, witty comedy. Today you would have to Google to find its name.
When it was released, one movie reviewer went back to his newspaper and wrote:
"It was like seeing your mother drunk."
That's how every newspaperman and every newspaperwoman felt about the Jayson Blair scandal. Not betrayed. But like seeing their mother drunk.
I worked on a newspaper with a newspaperman who drank too much beer and wrote too many checques RETURNED FOR INSUFFICIENT FUNDS. Finally the local prosecutor ceased to be warm and fuzzy and put him in jail for six months. Then they let him out and he went back to work, probably on another newspaper.
Those are the typical Atrocious War Crimes of newspaper reporters and editors. They are the War Crimes of the assistant manager of the pharmacy/apothecary/chemist. They are the War Crimes of your Cousin George.
Jayson Blair was a Sick Puppy. It wasn't good that he got caught and exposed so publicly. Necessary, I'm proud of how much publicity the scandal received in American newspapers.
But not Good.
It was like seeing your mother drunk.
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