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Don’t believe everything you read in the papers. This is
the educational column, with your ever acerbic, contradicting
columnist relaxing his cynical bite for a special edition I’d
like to call, “Confessions of a Journalist.” Indulge me
for a while as I take you on a backstage tour (there’s no
stage) of the life of this journalist (unfortunately, there’s
no life either).
In an effort to promote my upcoming book recounting my glory
days of reporting, I will share moments from this illustrious book
about an equally illusory career. Aptly titled “The Drunken,
Underachieving Generation,” it is a memoir dedicated to a
profession that has given me many sleepful nights thinking of new
ways to insult my readers.
Let me recite to you a bit of this extraordinary journey.
“I found the ring in my hand, where Fredo had put it. He told
me that to catch fishes, I must say my Hail Marys. Then I
remembered that I wasn’t Catholic, but rather a Hobo, which
in Middle Jupiter is a diminutive humanoid that frolicks at peasant
feasts all day. I slapped him. Instead, I journeyed to Drivendale,
where I became a journalist of the fellowship, a group of people
who sing bad guitar tunes every Friday night.”
As you can tell, I’ve taken a few liberties with the
facts, but the essence of the experience remains. Various points
are made, such as the fact that journalists are the gatekeepers,
not of the rings, but of information. Without us, people would
still be singing beer songs by tiny pianos. We filter facts, skew
opinions, recycle cliches, and give you fluff just so that you can
have something to peruse while you wait for the bus.
We sweat tears of blood from our veins in order to cry shouts of
pains of joy. We are … who am I kidding? (This is the moment
where I sob and realize that my whole career is a sham thus
becoming disillusioned). Why have I worked so hard to get my name
in the paper when I could’ve spent a few bucks at the
classifieds for the same thing? Woe is me for I cannot ignore the
man behind the curtain any more. A charlatan is what I am, not this
great chronicler of our times (that’s your cue to comfort me
with emails of condolence and affection).
In fact, arts journalists do nothing except to reinforce
dominant ways of already established thinking. Sure, we know the
arts, follow our favorite artists, read about them, buy their
works, and even get signatures whenever we can, but doesn’t
everybody? With the Internet’s plethora of information, almost
anyone can make a few calls and be in touch with stars.
The true challenge is being coherent for the interview. Getting
castigated by an artist for not realizing his greatness may be
about as fun as watching the Oscars ceremony, but I’m still
here to cover both of them. Interviews are like finals: One must
cram for them and spout off names and ideas with the kind of
sporadic logic that makes people believe that somehow you’ve
acquired “knowledge.” The truth is we are all blank
slates, ready to channel anecdotes and facts that our readership
supposedly cares about.
Contrary to what you may think, this is not the sweet life, or
what they call in Italian, a really long Fellini movie. While
sometimes chatting with Gillian Anderson may be fun, we are not
her. We eat the scraps from her table, which are invariably less
tasty than the variety that we cook up and write every day.
Perhaps composer Philip Glass said it best when I asked him
about a story I had read which reported he was a Tibetan Buddhist.
Glass laughed and replied, “Don’t believe everything
you read in the papers.”