The No News News Media

by Walter Brasch

There was a lot of news this past week.

Some of it was even reported by the news media.

First, there was a football player from Notre Dame who either did or didn’t know that his girlfriend was or wasn’t real, but died sometime during the season. Six column headlines for several days announced the fraud. Network news and talk show hosts rehashed it almost daily.

The Problem with the Bahmas

by Walter Brasch

          His face flushed, his cheeks puffing half-syllables of super-heated air, Sen. Porkbelly Fishbottom was about to swallow an aneurysm.

          I threw water on his face, trying to cool him. It just sputtered and sizzled.

          I tried quietly talking to him, trying to calm him down. He wasn’t listening.

          After five minutes, I was about to call 911 to report a stroke victim, when he said his first two-syllable word.

          “Bahma!”

Confessions of a Juiced Journalist

by Walter Brasch

Before Congress creates yet another useless special investigation committee and subpoenas me, I wish to come clean and confess.

      I took steroids. Strong steroids. The kind that bulk you up and make you look like Stone Mountain. In my case, they just fattened me up, gave me rosy-red cheeks, and destroyed about half of my systems.

      The first time I took steroids was for a year when I was a high school freshman. My physician prescribed it. Its side effects were that I didn’t have to worry about acne or my voice changing. The last time I took steroids was about a decade ago. For the first four or five months of what would be almost two years, it was a heavy dose. My hematologist said the drugs helped save my life. They also saved my writing career.

America’s Uncivil Phone Manners

 

by Walter Brasch

Wednesday, I called the newsrooms of Pennsylvania’s two largest newspapers.

            All I got were disembodied voices telling me no one was available and to leave a message.

            It was 11 a.m., and I thought someone—anyone!—should have answered their phones. But, with publishers doing their best to “maximize profits” by cutting news coverage and reporters, I figured they either didn’t have anyone capable of answering a phone or figured no one would be calling with any news that day.

            So I left a message. It was a routine question, specific for each newspaper and related to verifying information from their papers for a book I was completing.

            I left another message the next day. I would have called individual assignment reporters, but unlike the websites of many smaller newspapers, the metros’ websites didn’t have that information. Apparently, they don’t want readers to know who does what at their newspapers.