By AMY GESENHUES
Befriending a writer can be problematic. There is always the chance of showing up as a character in a book that will be around longer than you may be. You could spend your life committed to good deeds and clean living, and the next thing you know, you’re the inspiration for some bad guy who yells at children and writes bad checks.
If the writer is a columnist, your best bet is to run. I know firsthand the lengths a columnist will go to find material for a weekly assignment.
You may think she is without an agenda sitting good-naturedly by the bonfire, sipping her warm drink, laughing at her husband’s bad jokes with the rest of your neighbors; but, then Wednesday arrives and there’s the whole event in print for everyone in your zip code to read.
For this column, my intent is never to throw some undeservedly under the bus or belittle them for my own purposes and temperament (that I save solely for my husband). In my year of writing for The Tribune, there have only been two locals who I have confronted — on the page — for choices that I felt were in poor judgment. One never said anything (at least, nothing that got back to me). The other called the paper, obviously not happy with my commentary.
Both were public figures who had already made statements to the very media outlet where I was calling them out. I figured since they opened the door, I could push it open a bit more.
National figures are another case all together. I’ve used a large share of them to wax poetically on my own political opinions ... Sarah Palin, Rod Blagovich, Glenn Beck, Lynne Spears (this list could go on for paragraphs). It’s much easier to leverage figures of politics or entertainment in our celebrity-obsessed society for sociopolitical commentaries. The chances of me running into the Blagoviches are slim unless I start auditioning for reality shows.
The probability that I won’t be standing in line behind Rod or his wife at the Kroger on State Street doesn’t make it OK for me to criticize them. What does keep these certain politicians, entertainers, and reality-show casts in the headlines is the transitive nature within our celebrity-driven culture where the celebrity loses their humanity and becomes parodies of themselves or what they hope to represent. That combined with the eerie nature of someone who has been marked a celebrity to remain in the celebrity-spotlight (I’m seeing Tom Delay dancing a cha-cha on ABC primetime) creates a say-anything about anybody atmosphere.
There is also the way we consume our news that weakens the news itself, the people who are being reported on, and even the people who report it. My news addiction knows no boundaries. I am the first to admit that I take a healthy dose of Morning Joe first thing after waking; receive RSS feeds from HuffingtonPost, DailyBeast, and other politically-charged sites throughout the day; and logon on to PerezHilton whenever I feel slight pangs of online boredom. Our news is gradually becoming less about the news and more about how quickly and in what way we receive it.
Even with our 24/7 instant-streaming news consumption, I still consider what I can and can’t (should? Or shouldn’t?) write about. Not that I’m bringing you hardcore, breaking-news content here, but I have questioned the ethics of dishing on my kiddos, family, friends, and neighbors for the entertainment of my readers.
What if my husband and I have a knock-down drag-out, or my family plays a bit too muck poker? Where is my line in the proverbial sand of op-ed commentary? Less than a month ago, I called out my daughter for being a tattle tale. Whether this will come back to bite me in my own tail remains to be seen. My take on using my kids as content pretty much equates to this: if I’m still washing their clothes and fixing their meals then they are fair game. My hope is that we are able to stay clear of any Tori-Candy clashes once they are old enough to write about me.
For those of you who have friends that write, then my recommendation is to stay on their good side or just stay quiet. As a writer, I can tell you that we are a lot like those traffic cameras at busy intersections ... sometimes you may forget we are even there; and then, out of the blue, your entire Saturday night shows up in the local paper like fuzzy footage of a car wreck caught on tape.
Amy Gesenhues is a freelance writer who lives in Floyd County. You can read her daily commentaries at www.AmyWroteIt.Wordpress.com. E-mail her directly at amy@amywroteit.com.
