Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, October 14, 1993 TAG: 9310120117
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Beth Macy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
It's a good test of the what-goes-around-comes-around theory, the fact that the most embarrassing moments almost always seem to happen when you start thinking a bit too highly of yourself.
For instance, just last week I was guest-lecturing at a Virginia Tech journalism class, pontificating on my own process of researching and writing a story. The students seemed interested; nary a one fell asleep. And unlike most times when I talk in front of groups, I didn't even throw up en route.
Near the end, borrowing from the famous Miami Herald crime reporter Edna Buchanan, I quoted one of my favorite lines about how reporters should always double-check their facts, never counting on an editor to do it for them: "To entrust to an editor a story over which you have labored and to which your name and reputation are attached can be like sending your daughter off for an evening with Ted Bundy," Buchanan writes.
Of course less than 10 seconds after I left the classroom, feeling just a tad cocky about how well the talk went, I ran into a communications professor I'd interviewed by phone the week before. The story was OK, she said, but I'd screwed up one of the details. I didn't double-check my facts.
That doesn't even touch the embarrassment I felt when I was sent to write a feature on the Skidaway Island, Ga., marine science aquarium and sensed an immediate attraction to its director, whose office I sauntered back to in my long, flowing, button-up dress.
As I sat down to begin the interview, I looked down at my notebook and discovered that . . . ohmygod . . . the top four buttons of my dress had come undone, exposing pretty much everything (such as it was) from the waist up.
The aquarium waters practically boiled, my face generated so much heat. Thank God the director didn't say a word as I buttoned myself back up and went on with the worst interview of my life.
There have been other blunders, of course. During the Gulf War, for a story on the increasing popularity of heating with wood, I needed to find out the exact price of a gallon of fuel oil for comparison.
Having never used an oil furnace before, I figured all heating fuel came from the same utility. I called up Roanoke Gas. Asked to speak to a vice president, no less.
"This is the gas company," explained the patient, but humiliating, executive. "If you have a question about oil, you might want to try a fuel-oil company."
I must also confess to a crippling Fear of Famous People, who have typically been interviewed so many times before that nothing you can think up to ask them will sound new or interesting.
A few years ago, I had to cover a press conference and speech at Roanoke College by Ellen Goodman, who has perfected the ability to simultaneously sigh and roll her eyes at other, lesser reporters' questions.
Even worse, I got stuck riding in a car with her from downtown Roanoke - all the way to Roanoke College, which seems like forever when the only think you can think to say is, "Nice scarf."
"Thanks," she said. "I like your pin." She had some really nifty Italian loafers on, too, as I recall, but in a great show of professional restraint, I held my tongue.
Allen Ginsburg treated me like a supreme dork when I covered his visit to Virginia Military Institute a few years ago, even though I'd stayed up late the night before trying to figure out the meaning behind his epic poem, "Howl." But he did give me his home phone number in New York City in case I had questions later. I'm sure I'll never call, but I keep his number in my Rolodex anyway - it makes me feel kinda hip just stumbling across it every now and then.
And so I feel somewhat relieved now, having purged these journalistic bloopers. I have no intention of getting cocky about my clean slate again, either. Later this month I'm supposed to travel to Tazewell County to cover the filming of Hollywood's new "Lassie" movie, complete with celebrity producers, directors, actors and four collies alternating in the lead role.
I'm thinking the dogs would make a really fine interview, a press conference kind of thing perhaps.
And while she's confessing . . . Beth Macy, a features department staff writer, used to think you could drive El Caminos on the water - a float-car kind of thing. Her column runs Thursdays.
by CNB