The Write Stuff

We don't have TV. Let's just get that out there, because people are always asking "Have you seen this commercial? Do you watch this show?" No. And no. We watch a few shows online - The Big Bang Theory, The Walking Dead - and have seen a few series on DVDs we got at the library, and that's it. And because no one's ever satisfied with leaving it there, here's why we don't have TV:

We used to watch TV all the time. We'd just sit in front of it, and watch whatever was on, whether we were particularly interested or not. We ate in front of the TV, we did laundry in front of the TV, we worked in front of the TV. And we always bitched, because even with satellite, there was rarely anything good on. Channels repeated the same 20-year-old-movies four times a day, every day for weeks. There may be different episodes of a show on, but really, how many hours of SNL or CSI can you watch before it all runs together? So one day, over three years ago, I canceled the dish. I used the money to join the YMCA, which I'm not as faithful to as I was the TV, but at least I'm getting up and doing something. When we stay in hotels, we still watch a lot of TV, whatever's on. But it makes me grateful that those times are the exception and no longer the rule.

All of this is a long way of saying that because we don't have TV, we get all our news from the paper, magazines, or online sources. And we are constantly noticing a disturbing trend: there are very few writers left out there, at least in terms of the ones who work for news agencies. From the AP to the local entertainment weekly, there are way too many stories that are poorly researched, poorly written, or "just don't make no sense." I don't know if it's a problem with journalism schools nowadays (I know, I hate that word too, but it fits), or the fact that the internet makes it easier to write something without actually doing legwork, or the fact that editors apparently don't edit, but the quality of writing in the majority of stories is piss-poor.

So I have a theory: at some point (please, God), people will start demanding actual writing again. I'm talking about correctly spelled and punctuated stories that tell the facts, are easy to follow, and are worth reading. And when the people speak, and newspapers are scrambling to find Writers, they're not going to look at journalism schools. They're not going to look at AP stringers, or food critics-cum-editorial blowhards. Instead, they are going to turn to bloggers. Most writers talk about discipline, and the need to write every day, regardless of the publishability of what they write. It's the whole practice-makes-perfect thing. Bloggers write often, for a wide audience, and many of them tell stories that make me laugh, cry, throw things, or write my Congressperson. I almost never get that from the news, unless I am laughing at their ignorance, crying over the misspellings, throwing things at the monitor, or writing my Congressperson to tell them not to bail out papers that can't hire someone who knows the difference between "there" and "their."

This is not to toot my own horn. I don't expect to be tapped on that great day. But I DO look forward to seeing great people who are true wordsmiths get ahold of a story - any story - and make it worth reading.