After having watched this movie over the weekend, and seen the integrity and incredible journalism skills of the late Edward R. Murrow, it was especially painful for me today to have a conversation with a visitor to our town at this weekend's art and music festival.
I spent a lovely four hours at the festival on Sat. with my kids, enjoying the music, entertainment, and buying some art. One of the vendors there is a favorite artist of mine, and I bought a couple of prints from her. I got home last night and decided that one of the prints just wasn't working for me once I got it in the house, so I returned it today to exchange it for another one I had been considering.
While talking to the artist...a very, very nice woman...I asked her where she was from. New York, she said. I said, "oh you are the one they quoted in the newspaper." She looked aghast and said, "WHAT did they say about me? I've been hearing that I've been quoted in the newspaper all day."
What they said wasn't bad, in effect, it was that she wasn't selling much art, and that she needed to at least make enough money to cover her gasoline expenses to drive here from NY. I told her what the paper had said, and she told me that the "reporter" who interviewed her looked no more than 12 years old. We laughed about the fact that they probably sent a first-year summer intern to cover the story, but she was still bothered that this quote didn't really represent what she had told the reporter, and was concerned that she came across as negative about the festival.
Okay, so that can happen with lots of papers and tv reports...they take one thing you say out of five minutes of talking, and often it is the one thing that sounds the worst out of context. I completely understand that. But the fact that the story about the festival was accompanied by three photos, the biggest of which was of two out-of-focus people in the foreground, walking through the food vendor area, with a big "funnel cakes" sign in the background, represents the mentality that accompanies their editorial decisions.
Honestly, you morons, this is NOT what this festival is about. Could you at least have taken a photo of someone interacting with one of the artists, or looking at a painting? Could you not have photographed a child drawing in the chalk art area? No, it had to be about the damn funnel cakes.
Sigh.
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2 comments:
I'm beginning to wonder whether you shouldn't start your own underground newspaper for paducah, or a paducah news blog- something that would give appropriate attention to the goings-ons in the area. real news for real people.
Don't think I haven't thought about it. There are some good alternate news sources on the web (a really good local calendar of events, with sidebars about local restaurants, people, etc.) and there are some good monthly magazines, but my real issue here is that the Moon represents the people of this town to the outside world, and I believe actually hinders this community growing in a positive way.
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