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Joseph Heller, �God Knows�

Started September 21 � Finished October 12, 2006; 355 pages. Posted 01 February 2007

Well kids, how about I give a little journalism lesson? What�s that? Tough shit. Deal with it.

Now, since we�re talking about a lesson, I suppose I should give a thesis statement. Though then again, I�ve never really used them. Of course, getting kicked out of high school at the first semester of my sophomore year, maybe that�s because I never really learned how to use one, and my college professors were just as excited that I wasn�t just saying the same crap that the majority of students were recycling every semester. I think I only got called on not including the thesis statement twice, and I wasn�t marked down for it. Instead, they wrote it in the margins at the top of the paper because they hadn�t seen it yet, but forgot about it because I made my point and the thesis was clear throughout.

To me a thesis statement is repetitive. Worse, it�s having a lack of confidence in your presentation; you write a thesis statement because your writing is so convoluted that nobody can understand what you�re trying to say. Hell, Hot Professor told me requires thesis statements just so her students can remember to stick to the fucking point.

So what the hell. Here�s my thesis:

Reporters are scumbags.

Yeah, yeah, that�s about as obvious of a statement you can make, aside from that our �president� is a moron, and girls look better in tight bikini briefs than overweight Italian men. But I wanted to throw it out there just in case some of you had forgotten, perhaps because of being so sick of said scumbags that you now avoid them like I avoid men in tight bikini briefs. But I guess I should explain.

And since I�m taking the scholastic approach, I should quote some outside sources. Usually, one of the requirements is to quote three sources from the media. So here�s the first, a link to one of the rival papers here in Hawaii. (Actually, I�m going to make you cut and paste the Web address, because since it�s a rival to the paper I work for, I don�t want the thread. Let me know if the link expires.) Ready?

http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2007/Jan/16/ln/FP701160344.html

All right, so what�s wrong with this piece? Anyone? Anyone? Samantha?

Nobody? Jeez, this must be why professors are jaded.

The problem with this piece is that it�s totally one-sided. Its thesis statement is essentially, �Everybody loves the ban and it�s helping people to quit.� There�s no conflict. There�s no statement from people who are unhappy about the ban, of which there are many. What that means is that the reporter was either lazy, or worse, they had an agenda.

This is where we get into the area of ethics. Objectivity is bandied about a lot from those not actually in the press, and there�s a fundamental flaw in that way of thinking. It suggests that reporters should be nothing but empty vessels who collect information and spit it out, never being affected personally by the data. But reporters are human. And scumbags. Kind of like most humans.

Anyway, what I�m saying is it�s impossible to totally objective. If I have to interview a bunch of overweight Italian men in tight bikini briefs, I�m going to safely state that I wouldn�t enjoy the experience. But if same said overweight Italian men were organizing a benefit to allow, say, journalists to get free Jim Beam whenever they wanted it, I might like them. If they later amended their mission to give free Jim Beam to every reporter except to those named Dean, I probably would like them even less than I did when I found out they were overweight Italian men wearing tight bikini briefs. Opinions sway and grow as you learn more about the subject. It can�t be helped.

So objectivity is bullshit. But, what reporters have is a responsibility to be fair. I was going to add �balanced� to that statement, but I don�t want to get sued by Fox News. That and the fact that those two words with an �and� in the middle now represent a Fox trademarked statement makes me want to throw a bunch of overweight Italian men in tight bikini briefs at them, and that means I�d have to hang out with them again, even after they stopped giving people with my name free whisky.

Ok, that�s enough about those guys. Kelly recently visited, and we went to Waikiki. It�s rather scarring.

Anyhoo.

Look at the article again if you need to. People are in the mood to quit. Those who don�t are perfectly happy being herded around to segregated areas. Business is fine, and other business owners are interested in making the ban apply to their property as well. Oh, and by the way, here�s some info on organizations who will help you quit. We�re all one big happy state with white teeth and aphrodisiac breath.

What the hell? To me, this suggests that the writer and/or publisher likes the ban and wants to accentuate the positive. The only media companies that do that are the ones who want to sell you something. What bugs me is that this isn�t a total hack piece. The writer found several sources and went rather in-depth on the subject, and yet somehow failed to find one person who was angry about the ban and presented it like everything was all hunky-dory.

Reporters are scumbags.

Now, anybody who knows anything about journalism knows that the average reporter has to start working in some podunk town on the shitty beat (usually cops and courts) where they�ll stay until they prove their mettle. In one of those odd moments where things work out for me in a twisted sense of luck, I�ve found myself working the sin beat: drinking, smoking, and if I play my cards right, stripping. Doing all the bar reviews has made me a lot of friends, and these friends gave me a tip, which I followed up on.

The same day that that article hit the streets, I was at a meeting (in a bar), featuring a whole lot of people who were pissed off about the smoking ban, which I wrote about. This brings us to our second citation, which you can read here:

http://honoluluweekly.com/diary/2007/01/bar-owners-rally/

OK. So, I�m a smoker. (Yes, and I should quit, thank you Mother�) I also enjoy bars. I really enjoy combining the two. Amongst friends I�ve freely talked about how Hawaii actually hates me. When I was 16, I came here to visit my father, and I was all excited because I was within the legal smoking age.

They changed the legal limit to 18 a week before I arrived. I visited again when I was 18, which at the time, was the legal drinking age. Until I got there, that is, because they switched it to 21 a month prior. Then I moved here, loving the fact that I could sit in a bar with a beer and a cigarette at the same time.

This time they were a little slow on the draw, and I was able to indulge for a little over a year. Look here, island � if you really don�t want me here, you should just say so.

Yes, I�m a smoker, who enjoys smoking in bars, and yet, I was able to talk with and include the same people who have made me unhappy as of late, and more important, include them in the story. That�s called being fair. That, and that other word that would get me sued by Fox News.

And so how does that tie in with my thesis statement? The aftermath. Check the date on my story. 1/24/07.

The day after we hit print, after two months of basically no stories about a conflict, there was a flurry. The first came from television, and they�ve printed the story in text form.

http://www.thehawaiichannel.com/news/10847451/detail.html

Oh. You found a bar that's already ignoring the law and allowing patrons to smoke. Yeah, you found it by reading my story and then saying, �hmmm. That�s a good idea for a story.�

Scumbags.

Yeah, yeah, reporters have their own sources and leads and whatever, but you know what? The proof is in the publication dates. We�re a weekly paper, and we were the first to write about the issue. And by �we,� I mean me. Or I. Whatever. Like I said, I was kicked out in my sophomore year.

Since that first story, the bar association I mentioned sued the state. The group gave me the information before it happened, giving me the scoop, although they could only give me a portion of the story as they decided on an exclusivity agreement with a local television station.

I knew why they did it, as TV will give them more exposure. Nobody reads anymore, unless they�re reporters looking for story ideas they can rip off. And it was good of the bar owners to give me what they could, and our paper hit the street today, a full 24 hours before the pieces that are already being posted on our rival paper�s Web sites. Again, the proof is in the dateline, and I totally beat the rest of you. If I hadn�t lost my fedora on the last trip to California, you can bet I would put my press pass in the rim and write �scoop� across it.

I also had/have a follow-up story, a feature on two bartenders at my favorite dive bar featuring one who hates the ban, and another who likes it. The interesting part comes from the fact that the bartender who hates it is a non-smoker, and the one in favor smokes. But again, we�re a weekly. We�re not based around breaking news and we have limited space. My editor had to cut about 300 words from my original article, all parts he told me he hated to cut.

You may have noticed by now that I tend to write long. My editor pushed the follow-up piece to next week because he didn�t want to cut away parts that he thought were important or interesting. But now that the concentration is focusing on the negative aspects of the ban, by the time my story comes out on Feb 7, it�s probably going to be considered old hat.

Even with the frustration from that, it fits exactly with what I envisioned. When I was attempting to go to Columbia University, in a moment of self-doubt I thought about how I�d be attending the premier journalism school in the United States. And I�d be broke, meaning I�d have to compete with some of the best reporters and students in the world, many of whom wouldn�t be working seven jobs just to make ends meet in New York.

Meanwhile, there was the competition in Hawaii, a place where, when the FAA shut down one of the largest tourism discount flights, stranding thousands of travelers for over a week, none of the newspapers or television stations thought it relevant to explain why their planes were grounded. I�ve often joked that I�d be able to get a job here simply because I knew the difference between �its� and �it�s.�

Hawaii seemed easier.

And though I�ve only worked on the paper as a staff writer for two months, I have the rest of these scumbags on the run.

God knows, that fucking rules.


Rating: Worth the 50 cents I paid for it, though dammed if I could explain why.

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