Journalist Tantrums

As a journalist, I have made an oberservation: Journalists have an expectation that everyone will do an interview.

People, of course, have the right to refuse interviews. When they do, I've seen plenty of journalists get irrate. Journalists won't easily take "no" for an answer.

A lot of journalists feel they are entitled to information and a person's story. Democracy, afterall, is built on freedom of information. It is also built on the right to say "no."

While I respect a person's right to say "no," it certainly messes up a story. For instance, say when you lose the "other side's" perspective because of a refusal to do an interview. When people say the media is one-sided, well, sometimes that's because the "other side" doesn't want to talk. What's a journalist to do? One side is better than no sides.

On typewriters...

I don't understood the appeal of the typewriter in this day and age where computers rule supreme. Typewriters make edits pure hell. Yet I've met a number of young writers who are using old typewriters they've dug up out of their grandparents basement or bought on eBay.

I didn't understand the appeal of the typewriter until I read David Streit's poem: "untitled, november 23, 2006:"

"everyone loves a typewriter." Streit writes:

"it has the word writer in it.
no one wants to grow up to be a "puter."
eventually typing is a skill set that is being lost. this is the
recovery.
pause thought. scroll. type. type."