June 2, 2009
Yesterday morning I got a call from Tracey Kiest of the Grand Canyon Chapter of the Red Cross asking me if I would do a news bit for CPR Week on ABC15 at lunchtime. Went home and put pants on and came back to the office. Met Tracey and J.J. from the Red Cross and a few moments later in came Jodie Heisner, a news reporter for the local affiliate.

She looked pregnant, and I wanted to comment, but I remembered Dave Barry's sage advice: "The only time it's appropriate to ask woman if she's pregnant is if you can see the baby's head crowning." Or, words to that effect.

I assumed the camera person and crew were still arriving, until she started setting up the camera herself, and miking me as well. "Where's your crew?" I asked. She smiled and told me this is the new face of media. She is billed as a "Multi-Media Journalist" which is a fancy way of saying: "Crew? Ha-ha-ha-ha!"

Jodie interviewed me and J.J., then came in my office and shot B Roll, packed up and left to go edit the piece. Oh, and she told me it would be on either the five or six o'clock news. Talk about tight schedules.

When I got home at 5:30 I turned on ABC15 News and caught the national forum on erectile disfunction. Actually, it was allegedly the news but I have never seen so many drug ads in my life. And, the disclaimers are horrifying: "If diarrhea and hallucinations persist, see your doctor. . ." And they go on and on, totally undermining the very thing they are touting.

Not that the news is any better. So much sensationalized gloom and doom. An abortion doctor killed in church (Hey, Pakistan, our religious fanatics are crazier than yours!), a local man killed his wife and stabbed his 4-year-old son because "God told me to do it." Thank God the devil wasn't talking to him. Anyway, I missed my segment but at the end of the newscast they showed their website and there was the link to the CPR Week segment:

CPR Survivor

I often sketch while I'm watching TV (something I've done since Sugarfoot days) and I did my ten sketches while watching the news:

When I woke up this morning to look at my sketches I blanched at the density and convoluted imagery. No place to rest the eye, all confusion and twitter (literally). But, as I ate a piece of toast and drank my coffee I began to see clearly the New Face of Media.

It's a dense dilly, ain't it? Gee, I wonder what ol' H.M. has to say about all this?

"We see things not as they are, but as we are."
—H.M. Tomlinson