A MISSED OPPORTUNITY

Thursday's news that Pluto had been banished from planethood presented us at The Telegraph with one of those moments I live for: the chance to lower the tone of public discourse through coarse, puerile antics.

The headline that we put on the story was clever enough -- "Eight is enough" -- and other papers had used it as well. But where we could have made a distinct, forgettable mark upon journalism would have been the secondary headline. We could have reached for the stars and grabbed ... Uranus. Imagine a secondary headline that said "Don't worry; status of Uranus unaffected" or "Scientists to probe Uranus next." Oh, that would be sooooo wrong, but the thought of sending a managing editor or an executive editor into a catatonic state is almost irresistable.

Local TV news missed the boat even worse than we did, given the forced on-air chit-chat that dual anchors are encouraged to wallow in. Imagine this banter:

MALE ANCHOR: And so Pluto is no longer a planet. That means that the planet farthest from the Sun is (starts speaking with faux curiosity) ... oh is it Neptune or -- what's the name of that other planet?

FEMALE ANCHOR: Uranus.

MALE ANCHOR: BAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Such a chance won't come again anytime soon.

A COUPLE OF RANDOM MUSINGS

So I was ushering in church this past Sunday, and a thought occurred to me. At the end of the service, our priest stood outside the church to greet the congregants individually, as is customary. However, this caused the line out of church to move rather slowly. That could be a major problem once 1 o'clock kickoffs become a factor. So I was thinking that if I wind up ushering during football season, I shall bring a whistle and a stopwatch. Any parishoner who chats more than 15 seconds with the priest gets a sharp blast from the whistle and instructions to move along.

Or what we could do is make a life-size cardboard cutout of our priest. The cutout could have a speaker attached that plays a loop of appropriate clerical greetings: "Peace be with you. Go forth with a joyful heart. Walk with love. Peace be with you." This gets the priest home in time for kickoff, too. Well-heeled churches could commission an artist to create a lifelike sculpture of its pastor or priest. Or if that is too expensive, the church could get an old Frisch's Big Boy with a working two-way speaker. The statue could be done up in vestments, and the priest could converse with the congregants through the two-way speaker from the comfort of his office.
Not a bad idea.

*****

I was thinking the other day of one of the strangest calls that ever came into a newsroom where I was working. About 10 years ago, I was working at a paper in North Carolina. About 25 minutes from deadline on a Friday night, the night metro editor turned to the copy desk and asked what he should tell a caller whom he had just put on hold. The caller had phoned us because he wanted to express his displeasure with the local NBC affiliate. Apparently, the station had interrupted a broadcast of a Reba McIntire concert for a news update. When our caller, a Reba fan for sure, phoned the TV station to complain, he was told that if he ever called the station again, the station would send someone to kill him. That is what he told our night metro editor. What, our night editor asked, should he tell this man? After thinking about it for a second, I said, "Tell him if he ever calls us again, we're killing Reba."

Sorry, Reba.

THE BIG HELLO

Meeting the parents. It's often one of the first really important milestones in a relationship. It's a moment when lovers begin to look beyond the world they have built together and see themselves sharing in something larger. And it's also a chance to start probing for weaknesses that can be exploited when you and your spouse are running a little short of cash or when your in-laws are just a real pain in the ass.

Meeting the parents is like a job interview: The first impression is critical. You have to read your audience quickly and adjust. If the father of your intended wants to talk about his love of Flaubert and orders Aile de Raie aux Câpres for dinner, it's probably a bad idea to let the words "damn preening frogs" escape your lips -- unless you happen to be near a pond of show-off amphibians. Similarly, if the parents' favorite topic of conversation is Jeff Gordon's rightful place in NASCAR history, it's probably a bad idea to draw comparisons to Jussi Bjorling's spot in opera history (event though his given name sounds like it would be right at home on the Nextel Cup circuit).

For those of you fearful of this moment, set your dread aside. I am here to offer you a few handy tips that will steer you through this difficult passage, and put you that much closer to having another set of parents to sponge off of.

Let's suppose a young man is bringing his girlfriend to meet his parents for dinner at an upscale restaurant. Once all are seated at the table, the action begins:

FATHER: Whoa! Babe alert! I want her!

MOTHER: (Glaring at her husband and hissing venomously) Shut up, honey! (Her head whirls back to look at your girlfriend. Mom's face is contorted momentarily by pure malice before settling into a look of forced politeness and solicitousness) So, my dear, tell us something about yourself. You did say your name was Amanda, didn't you? Or was it Angela? Oh, forgive me! My dear son has had so many girlfriends it's hard to keep track of all of you. Why, just last month one of his former girlfriends was crowned Miss Universe. Miss Universe! Can you believe it?! And then there was his college sweetheart who just became the youngest federal judge in history. But that's all in the past. What is it you do, Anna?

GIRLFRIEND: Well, I --

MOTHER: (In a voice that makes the rafters shake) Just as I thought! You're nothing but a scheming little strumpet bent on marrying into money! Don't think I don't see through you! All you want to do is get your hands on my son's inheritance and then get your hands on a string of Italian lovers! Well, let me tell you, the Brentworth family stands for more than just money. We have been pillars of the community for generations, representatives of a fading sense of honor, dignity and --

FATHER: (Still ogling girlfriend) Grrrr! Womanflesh!

MOTHER: (Not missing a beat) Patronage. You can't buy any of that, and if you think you can just waltz into our family ... well, I see you in hell first!

Clearly, this is a family event that got off the rails pretty fast. So what do you do in this situation or one like it? The solution is so easy a 5-year-old could come up with it. You tellwithh waiter to bring your mother a trough full of martinis and a small animal to dismember. And you ask the hostess whether she would mind bouncing up and down on a pogo stick to entertain your father.

But imagine the shoe is on the other foot. Imagine it's you saying all the wrong things.

YOU: (Eyes flitting indiscreetly from your girlfriend's breasts to her mother's) Mr. Bunsworth, I kinda think that your daughter has your eyes, but I can definitely tell what she got from her mother. Damn! Have you ever compared the racks on both of them? You know what I'm thinking? I'm thinking of that scene in Wedding Crashers, you know, the "motorboat" thing ..."

The best way to get out of a bad conversation that you have started is to take your knife and stab your tongue to the table.

The point I'm trying to make is that any meet-the-parents moment can be saved from disaster, and if not that just means you have more free time during football season. If all goes well, you have nothing to worry about.

Until the wedding.

THE MENTORING THING

American journalism is full of stories of cantankerous yet competent and fair mentors. Almost every journalist who has reached the heights has a story about an editor he encountered at the dawn of his career, someone who was sage and patient and pushed the fledgling scribe to reach beyond mere adequacy and grasp greatness. "As I stand here at the summit of my profession," our grown-up journalist might one day say, "without having committed acts of plagiarism to numerous to mention or inventing sources, I look back fondly at the counsel of my first editor, Vern Hardass, who told me, 'Patterson, you can get chicks without plagiarizing or making up sources.'"

Such acknowledgment is touching. So I guess it's a real suck for me that most of the young journalists that I have coached would probably say, "That rat-bastard nearly ruined me."

And deliberately, too, I might add. It's not that I hated them. Some of these novice copy editors have been so nice that it was with great reluctance that I set about dismantling their futures. But when they walk into a newsroom radiating a First Amendment purity and fervor, they are not saying, "Here I stand, rejecting the materialism of the surrounding consumer culture in order to make a positive difference in the world." They are saying, "Here I stand, rejecting the materialism of the surrounding consumer culture in order to keep your salary just a little north of poverty, John Parnell." So faced with such a threat, what else could I do but adopt the worldview of the Corleones: "It's not personal, it's just business."

Most young copy editors are eager to get along, eager to work and, best of all, eager to trust. They listen attentively to the grizzled veterans of the desk, trying to soak up our wisdom and flatter us with their rapt attention. This does not mean they are entirely gullible (I've never once persuaded one to spend an entire winter night sitting on the banks of the Ocmulgee River and trying to get a photo of "Mully" the legendary Ocmulgee sea monster), but it does mean they might be a little careless about letting people look over their shoulder while they are typing in their passwords.

Getting ahold of a password is where the real fun starts. In our system, our work is traced through our sign-ons. Any change I make in a story is duly noted to have been the handiwork of "JPARNELL." So you can see what a blast I can have if I am able to sign on under "SNEWBIE." I could go into a story and change this sentence:

The district attorney said Wednesday that he would review the case when he returns from an out-of-town trip.

To this sentence:

The district attorney said Wednesday that he would review the case when he returns from an acid trip.

And nobody would be able to trace it back to me. The blame would go to our eager yet careless novice, as would the reprimand.

Unfortunately, that can only work a few times before too many questions get asked. The tech guys would start rummaging through computers and heaven only knows what sort of smoking kilobytes they might find. So that means it's sometimes best to do 'em in with style.

In this instance, "style" does not mean that I would don an Armani suit to do my dark work. Rather, "style" is how a newspaper governs the unruly minutiae of the English language: hypens, commas, questions about capitalization, questions about numerals, questions about acronyms. It often eludes logic, and so spares us lengthy explanations. Whenever a rookie toddles up to a news desk veteran with a question about hyphenating, we usually just pat the rookie on the head, smile affectionately and say, "That's just our style."

Rookies hear that enough and they soon move into the "acceptance" stage of their employment. They start doing whatever they are told, no matter how cockeyed or silly it might seem. For instance, I like to tell new hires that it's our style to put words of interest in bold italics, like this: "The congressman admitted he had an inappropriate sexual relationship with the young intern." Better yet, throw in a leering (!) and you've a whole new way of reaching out to the readers. "The high school principal said the teacher had had numerous sexual encounters with the cheerleaders (!), but declined to say more."

If they fall for that, then it's just a short push to get them to start putting emoticons into copy. Either of the above sentences could have used a ;) or a :-o.

Needless to say, the poo-bahs at the paper would frown upon such "style." They would ruthlessly hunt down its perpetrators, and I would happily point my finger at our by now thoroughly confused and demoralized novice. I would deflect accusations against me as the hysterics of someone undone by the strain of daily deadlines. And I would chuckle warmly as the novice is led off to the executive editor's office.

Is any of that going to endear me to rising journalists? Of course not. But it's such fun. Look, almost every profession eats its young somehow, and I have a big appetite.

We have an opening on our news right now. Care to apply?

AN APOLOGY

Sorry to have taken so long between blog posts for the past month or so. I have been absorbed with a side project that has kept me out of the Rabbit Hole for much of that time, and truth be told, I got a little slack. To those of you who follow this blog, I am sorry. I appreciate your interests and your comments (another shout-out to you, Hannah M.), and I plan to regain my consistency in the next week or so. Thank you for your patience.