Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose, �Bushwacked: Life in George W. Bush�s America�
In the past few weeks, I�ve written articles on smoking in bars, Michael Moore, Punk rock (Agent Orange is playing here this Sunday), along with (not linked up yet) a yacht party/pub crawl, Mystery Science Theater 3000 (via The Film Crew), a few other bars and clubs, and the unveiling of a nine-foot Bronze Elvis statue from the fat-but-not-quite-obese Elvis days. And now, I just got home from a special media screening of the Simpsons movie, a full, what, 17 hours before it opens?
Yeah, I�ve had worse jobs. Looking at you Olive Garden! You can stick your breadsticks where� Oh wait, they already do that.
But I�ve also had a little bit of trouble with the job. Nothing that special, but I did get an angry phone call from a company representative (actually, I got more angry calls letters concerning my review for Sicko. Michael Moore, save me from your followers). But what this person was really mad about was an entry I wrote for the calendar for a Baby Contest.
Now, when I first took the editor job, my predecessor explained that a lot of the events happen year after year after year. �All you really need to do,� she said, �is change the date, add on two bucks to the price for inflation, and update whatever bands are playing.� Basically, what that means is before you go filling in all the information, you check to see if something already exists and update accordingly.
So I got the press release on the baby pageant and typed up the keywords in the database. Sure enough, there was a previously written entry. I changed the date and entry fee, and then checked the information in the text to make sure it was accurate. There was the standard stuff about how to enter, age requirements (under 2 years old). Then I saw the text written from the old editor.
I ran into the old editor a while back, and she congratulated the work that I was doing. �You�re really funny on a lot of those entries,� she told me. �That�s good, because the section is basically nothing but text, and it can get really boring. The way you add a lot of humor makes people keep reading.�
Of course, my sense of humor could potentially get me in serious trouble. I�ve restrained myself on occasion, most notably when I had to write a caption for a picture for a museum exhibit entitled �Speed.� Here�s what they provided for a picture.
An exhibit titled �Speed� and children building what looks like a meth lab equals Dean getting fired for writing a caption that says the first thing that comes to mind.
But anyway, back to the baby pageant. So the entry was there, meaning less work for me. And then at the end, I saw that the old editor had a moment of being funny herself, for after all the technical stuff, she wrote �ugly, boring babies need not apply.�
After that sentence, however, she decided to save her skin, putting �just kidding, we know all babies are beautiful� in parenthesis.
Now, I take my job as a reporter seriously. When writing about smoking in bars, I damn well smoked in bars. When reviewing the yacht/pub crawl, I got on the boat and went to the pubs. What I�m saying, is that I believe journalists have a responsibility to be honest and accurate.
And damn if there aren�t some ugly, boring babies out there.
I took out the parenthetical remark.
Well apparently, some people thought I was talking about their ugly, boring babies, because they started calling the company, furious that their kids couldn�t go through the motions of becoming the next JonBenet Ramsey. The company spokesperson called me demanding a retraction, which I refused to do. When she pressed the matter, I explained that since the basic information was accurate, the only retraction that we could possibly run would say something to the effect that the statement that ugly, boring babies need not apply was, in fact, inaccurate and that these babies were welcome and even encouraged to participate.
She dropped the matter, but I don�t think they�re going to advertise with us.
