Evan M. Peterson Television Pundit - NOT
Earlier this week a perky sounding woman called me from a familiar sounding segment from a national network evening news show asking if I would talk to the associate producer later that week about being interviewed. OK, I said I'd be happy to take a few moments to speak with him. We scheduled the time and she referred me to the show's web site, which features a well known sportscaster as the host. Funny, though, the web site's name is actually a play on words: it's the name of the news segment with "TV" added to the end.

About two years ago a local paper called me for an interview. The reporter was a nice woman and had many questions. I was bored, driving through the vast cornfields of central Illinois, and gave her as much as 40 minutes of my time. When the article came out, it featured prominently the quotes of a person who works for a competitor of my company. She mentioned one snippet of what I had said three quarters of the way through the article and ended with more wisdom from the other guy. My interview must have really been a dud, I thought, until I looked across the fold. The hospital that owned the competitor had purchased a full page ad right next to the article.

So it is my sad experience that what passes for journalism can be bought and sold more often than one would like to think. Turn on the TV tonight and pick any local or national news show. Of the five or six top stories, what percentage of them are either horrible tragedies or someone screwing up? It has been said in Chicago journalism, if it bleeds, it leads. And this is what they sell advertisements around: horrible tragedies and people screwing up. It's a business, like any other, and making money is less about telling the truth than it is about ratings. That's not to say most of the people who do this are liars. But the composition of the reality they present to us day after day is geared towards the sensational, the humiliating, and the horrific.

A year after my ill fated cornfield cell phone newspaper interview, I was contacted by a television program for an interview. After talking to me for about 10 minutes, they did me the courtesy of laying it on the line: I was to pay for my own interview. If I put up the $10,000 to $15,000 production costs for my segment, they would come out with a camera crew and interview me. They would then "market" the interview to airlines and schools. Three problems with this, no wait, four: (1) it's not a life goal of mine to be on TV, (2) I had no reason to believe they wouldn't simply label the DVD "chubby social worker talks nonsense" throw in a drawer and and never market it, (3) I have flown over 75,000 miles in my life and I can't remember anything I might have actually watched on the fuzzy little airplane TV screen, and (4) most importantly - I didn't have $10,000 laying about the house. Still don't.

Now back to that "Familiar Sounding News Segment TV" web site. The host, who is over 60 and instantly recognizable as a sportscaster, has his resume all over it. The show itself doesn't appear to have actually have been aired. They do list a lot of vague "lifestyle" topics that people like me spend our lives studying and could probably put together an intelligent sentence or two about. The human element, you know, not that leading bleeding stuff, the softer side that makes ya smile. But they have only plans. No accomplishments, no awards, no scheduled air times, no agreements in the works to report, nothing.

Today the "assistant producer" called me. I'm not impressed with the title because on some programs, that's an important guy, and on others it's the guy who goes out to get the talent sandwiches. Nevertheless, initially he seems to be a nice fellow and I tell him I'm happy to grant him an interview, but I have one caveat. I have been contacted in the past and asked to be interviewed and then solicited for production funds. I am glad to provide an interview, but I am not happy to do so in return for solicitation of funding for the program. His answer was carefully worded, "I have nothing to do with asking the people we interview for any money." Notice he didn't say "we don't do that" he just said that he didn't. Then he said, "You've obviously had some negative experiences with television before and I'm not feeling very comfortable talking with you. We have other people we will be talking to in the next two weeks and I think it's best that we not interview you." Then he hung up on me.

Thanks, buddy. it's my birthday today and the associate producer of "Familiar Sounding News Segment TV" hangs up on me. He just wanted desperately to bail out of the phone call because I had already figured him out: he had no TV show. He was the associate producer of nothing but a web site with plans and apparently no accomplishments. I'm nobody and I've got that. This is the web site and today's plans are to celebrate my birthday with my family. Tomorrow's plans are to work on one of the workshops I'm presenting at an Ivy League university next month.

And if I were you, I'd work on product placement, Mr. associate producer of "Familiar Sounding News Segment TV." Because your famous sportscaster can be Googled but your TV show isn't associated with his name anywhere on the first 15 pages of results, where references to his more famous brother and arcane blog references start to take over. In fact, I can't find your TV show's web site on Google at all. I can't find your fake TV show on TV, either.

UPDATE: After writing this, their web site disappeared. References to the program charging guests for appearances started to appear on Internet blogs, one person reported that they asked him for a $19,700 "scheduling fee" to air one of their segments, and their telephone number and street address changed, then they disappeared. No wonder that guy was uncomfortable talking to me.

BACK TO THE TO THE TOP
MOST POPULAR THOUGHTS
EVAN'S FAVORITE THOUGHTS