Dear friends, this is not good. It’s the third issue of the semester and already deadlines elude me and the grandiose plans for stories which seemed so great at the point of conception (I heard that’s where life started, not sure I agree) now unravel at every angle and would seem perhaps more folly than providential.
That is to say, I am derelict in my duty. Let’s recap.
Sunday, Jan. 8
It’s late in the evening, and chances are better than not that a certain reporter has been buried in the land of Westeros for most of the day. In a break from treachery and fantasy warfare I check my news feed and discover a disturbing report. Apparently, our local daily paper has not only systematically ignored the NDAA and SOPA legislation currently in Senate, the latter of which has now been passed into law, but also blocked reader comments asking for coverage of these issues. The combined implications of these bills would be the indefinite detention of American citizens without probable cause and the destruction of the Internet as we know it.
Now, as I have a deep-seeded beef with that paper, it seemed an opportunity to finally make a legitimate platform to argue their ineptitude and bias favoritism. Ideas for attack formed in my head; rage ensued.
Tuesday, Jan. 10
The Beacon reconvenes from winter sabbatical, all to the heraldic trumpets of seraphim and … O.K. you’re looking at the Sudoku now, let’s get back to the point. After consulting some of the more veteran members of staff, it becomes obvious this potential rant against our competitor and sometimes business partner might not hold much water without some solid policy quotes from their camp, an unlikely proposition. O.K., well, am I really going to prop up a rage strike based on some Internet comments?
All the while volunteers (they wore blue shirts, can’t give them the superlative capital “V”) gather along Peyton Manning Pass and Philip Fulmer Way in a mock Thanksgiving parade formation. Talk for the past week revolved around the shoot for “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition,” ABC’s feel-good renovation show which awards deserving families with a new home. The episode set in Knoxville was touted as a way to rev up Knoxville’s national profile, and the parade seemed to encapsulate that point.
Set to begin at 3:30 p.m., the parade actually ran up the stretch of road between the UC and the Communications Building three times, each punctuated by an endless process of turnaround and abominable wait. During this time I spoke with my contact on the SOPA story and found out that while the choice to block user commentary is indeed a dastardly practice, his own commentary was more spamming to maximize the exposure of lacking coverage, and by his own admission he was asking for a banhammer.
My story dead in the water, the parade lost any luster and instead became a charade. In my mind, using floats from the actual Macy’s Parade and marching people off and on for three hours down a small stretch for a reel that might air for 30 seconds at most seemed a grievous waste of resources.
Don’t get me wrong, the idea of charity and coming together to provide a place to live for those who cannot provide it themselves is a noble ambition, and the core idea of the show works for that reason. However, there was no story to be had after three hours of waiting. They rolled the family in on a bus, the volunteers surrounded them with their inflated stars and a pilgrim Garfield the Cat, and for half an hour they shot over and over again the family smushed together with this gleeful mob shaking pompoms and shouting on cue. No speeches, no uplifting message to take away from the experience, and even the sequence of the lucky homeowners pulling away in a stretch navigator had to be shot multiple times to get all the angles.
In a stew, I vowed to show the gut-wrenching artifice of the sorry affair.
Thursday, Jan. 12
Given time and reflection, cooler heads have prevailed and I sit here now, relieved. Neither story panned out as planned, and my initial pessimism stems from anger over not finding exactly what I was looking for in the field. Let this be a caution to anyone who journeys to tell a tale, especially one based on facts: Go in without any ideas to take for granted and tell what you see, as best as possible.
I still have not lost the vitriol which these events have stirred, but the need to make a crusade in print has subsided. It’s an ugly job, realizing that your efforts might not ever garner the intended or desired result you imagined, but that’s life. Get a helmet.
— Jake Lane is a graduate in creative writing. He can be reached at [email protected].
