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Jan. 13th, 2006 12:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oakenguyMy mom and dad send me my hometown paper, the Norway-South Paris Advertiser-Democrat. Not to get all Lake Wobegon, but...okay, here's an example.
I'm looking at the front page. Let me emphasize: THE FRONT PAGE. Below the article headlined Dogs can still bark in Sumner and to the left of Blind musher featured at weekend dog sledding fair (*not* held in Sumner), is Canned Skunk. It's important enough to have one of the only two pictures on the page, a photo of a woman holding an empty tin can. Because this is America and we like to have things spelled out, the photo caption reads A SKUNK'S HEAD WAS STUCK IN HERE.
Really, what more is there to say?
Fifteen paragraphs worth, actually. The woman, on her way to work, saw a skunk wandering back and forth. She says "I thought it was odd because it was daylight." (Thus implying that she wades through skunks up to her neck after sunset.) When she got closer, she could see the skunk had a can on its head.
I quote again: The skunk walked up to her and bumped into her - but it did not spray.
(Note to self--never, EVER have this woman on my dodgeball team.)
"I figured at that point it would have sprayed me if I was going to get sprayed," the woman said. (See previous note re: complete ineptitude at dodging.) So she picked up the skunk and the can, wiggled his head loose, and watched him wander off docilely into the brush.
That's my hometown.
Just to contrast this: the other day I was driving down Comm Ave in Allston, heading for the store. It was midday, there was moderate traffic; when I stopped at a red light I was about three cars back. Three lane street. There were three SUVs in front of me, in front of and on each side of this blue Camry, but did I think anything of it? Of course not. Not until all the SUV doors opened at the same time, and about eight large men holding badges and walkie-talkies swarmed over the blue car yelling "Hands up where we can see them! UP!" As I watched, two very surprised-looking Hispanic men were patted down and cuffed while the car started to be searched; then the light changed and, not knowing what else to do, we all slowly and carefully drove past this little knot of turmoil.
I haven't found a word about this in either of the Boston daily papers.
I'm looking at the front page. Let me emphasize: THE FRONT PAGE. Below the article headlined Dogs can still bark in Sumner and to the left of Blind musher featured at weekend dog sledding fair (*not* held in Sumner), is Canned Skunk. It's important enough to have one of the only two pictures on the page, a photo of a woman holding an empty tin can. Because this is America and we like to have things spelled out, the photo caption reads A SKUNK'S HEAD WAS STUCK IN HERE.
Really, what more is there to say?
Fifteen paragraphs worth, actually. The woman, on her way to work, saw a skunk wandering back and forth. She says "I thought it was odd because it was daylight." (Thus implying that she wades through skunks up to her neck after sunset.) When she got closer, she could see the skunk had a can on its head.
I quote again: The skunk walked up to her and bumped into her - but it did not spray.
(Note to self--never, EVER have this woman on my dodgeball team.)
"I figured at that point it would have sprayed me if I was going to get sprayed," the woman said. (See previous note re: complete ineptitude at dodging.) So she picked up the skunk and the can, wiggled his head loose, and watched him wander off docilely into the brush.
That's my hometown.
Just to contrast this: the other day I was driving down Comm Ave in Allston, heading for the store. It was midday, there was moderate traffic; when I stopped at a red light I was about three cars back. Three lane street. There were three SUVs in front of me, in front of and on each side of this blue Camry, but did I think anything of it? Of course not. Not until all the SUV doors opened at the same time, and about eight large men holding badges and walkie-talkies swarmed over the blue car yelling "Hands up where we can see them! UP!" As I watched, two very surprised-looking Hispanic men were patted down and cuffed while the car started to be searched; then the light changed and, not knowing what else to do, we all slowly and carefully drove past this little knot of turmoil.
I haven't found a word about this in either of the Boston daily papers.
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Date: 2006-01-13 06:38 pm (UTC)I could totally be a journalist in your home town.
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Date: 2006-01-13 06:49 pm (UTC)BTW, sorry you can't make it to FL with us in March. Sad, very sad.
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Date: 2006-01-13 06:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-13 07:37 pm (UTC)And I feel you on the random arresting - so much of that goes *completely* unreported. About two years ago, there was a US military helicopter over my place up in Tewksbury, and it had it's gun bays not only open but actively targeting things. It was actively targetting houses, cars, etc.
Never reported, never explained, nothing. It targeted all over the Tewksbury/Lowell area for about an hour before buggering off somewhere.
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Date: 2006-01-13 08:03 pm (UTC)LOL! I agree, agility is good when dealing with skunks. But from my own encounters with them, I gotta say that they're about the most laid-back animals on the face of the earth. They make tree-sloths seem like over-caffeinated crackheads. The mellowest of sterotypical 60's hippies have nothing on the average skunk. I can't imagine how you could actually get a skunk so worked up that it would spray you, short of vigorous physical assault, or news that Alito has been confirmed...
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Date: 2006-01-13 08:59 pm (UTC)Glad the skunk got freed, though.
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Date: 2006-01-13 09:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-13 10:14 pm (UTC)God?
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Date: 2006-01-13 10:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-14 12:50 am (UTC)Hey!
Date: 2006-01-14 03:46 am (UTC)journamalism
Date: 2006-01-14 04:44 am (UTC)Look, I've been reading the Ad-Dem since 1984. I've been in it five times (not counting prank letters to the editor during the uproar over the Grateful Dead concert at Oxford Plains Speedway), I've bought ad space in it, I've probably groaned at the same rabid letter writers you have. (Does the name Pastor Henry ring a bell?) I've sat in the owner's hot tub, for chrissakes.
I know that it regularly kicks the Bethel Times's ass; I know that one of the fundamental rules of journalism is that people buy copies if there's a chance their name will get mentioned. I also know that Dogs can still bark in Sumner WAS the serious story of that particular front page (it was the main topic at a town meeting, donchaknow).
I won't even bring up the week the 'man on the street' interviews were with babies who were asked to give advice, said advice being gems like "Don't take any wooden nickels--they taste bad!" Oh wait, I just did.
And I think you missed a point of my post, which is that IF anything like that traffic bust had happened in Norway-South Paris, ideally in front of Odd Fellowes Hall (I just love typing that), it would've gotten ninety-five kazillion paragraphs of coverage, complete with interviews from every eyewitness and pictures of the intersection where it happened. I know it's probably unwise to wish either that the Globe take up the Ad-Dem model of microjournalism, or that Boston-style crime events and other "excitement" happened in Oxford Hills...but every now and then I do.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-14 05:07 am (UTC)That's right, get to a phone, call your paper of choice, ask for the cop beat guy/girl (it's girl at the Herald) and tell 'em. Then they'll ask for ya, and assuming the reporter is any good, you will see some sort of info on the incident. Likely with quotes from you.
Journalism, ergo Democracy, don't work so well as a spectator sport.
And junk.
Thanks for the chuckle :)
Date: 2006-01-14 12:51 pm (UTC)Re: (Hey!) journamalism
Date: 2006-01-14 04:34 pm (UTC)Speaking to your point, one of my first days at the paper a woman got run down by an SUV right in front of the Ad-Dem office the night of the weekly deadline. We ran a picture of her lying in the road dying on the front page - not a popular move in town.
And don't get me started on Man in the Street. We dreaded it. Every goddamn week we had to traipse out into town and harangue people with some inane question. And the hardest part was, you kept running into the same people! Or people would answer the question perfectly, then balk at having their picture taken. One time I was being tailed by an eighth-grader on Career Day, and I made him stand outside the supermarket grabbing shoppers and asking them the question, until a manager politely asked us to leave. Those were the days.
I also worked on one of the Ad-Dem's sister papers, the Berlin (NH) Reporter (now defunct, along with the paper mill), one of our biggest stories was about a crazy couple who were feeding trash to hundreds of cats, chickens, goats, and assorted other beasts in their farmyard. Eventually the chickens started cannibalizing each other and then the bears showed up. I got some great pictures and we ran it on the front page for a week (this was the smallest city in the nation with a daily paper at the time). When the town fathers arrived, with haz-mat guys in space-suits, to condemn the place, the Union-Leader and Channel 9 from Manchester were there. One of my proudest moments in journalism.
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Date: 2006-01-14 11:57 pm (UTC)Re: (Hey!) journamalism
Date: 2006-01-15 12:22 am (UTC)