5 MAR 03: ONE QUESTION TOO MANY
The letters section of today's Ledge-Enquirer confirmed what I'd suspected for more than a week - I wrote a question for my TV station's "Viewer Line" which offended some people. The strange thing is, the question had nothing to do with the Georgia flag....
In the 6:00 a.m. newscast I've been producing, I showed an ABC report on a U.S. air base in Saudi Arabia. This base has a Burger King, a Pizza Inn and a Baskin-Robbins on site. If some of those were covertly set up inside Baghdad, Saddam Hussein might have died from obesity by now.
After the report, I asked the viewers in a script to call with their thoughts about an overseas air base with so many perks. "Do they help boost morale?" I asked. But then I added: "Are today's armed forces spoiled?" Uh oh - the way some people are reacting to that, I might as well have changed all the "Veterans Parkway" signs in town back to 4th Avenue.
One letter writer in the newspaper declared the second question, "The most ignorant question ever." Apparently that's even worse than a single guy asking online, "Am I hot or not?"
Several people apparently felt personally insulted by a question asking if the armed forces are spoiled - when my point really was to bring calls to the "Viewer Line." Trouble is, none of the calls have been played on the air yet. What was that Watergate line - "twisting slowly, slowly in the wind" ?!
We're down a bit in staffing at the TV station right now, which may explain why the Viewer Line calls have not been aired yet. But based on the letters in the paper, I think I can fairly guess the answer to the spoiled military question. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO."
I first suspected the question touched a nerve when I received e-mail from my supervisor the next night. It says from now on, all Viewer Line 9 questions must have her approval. For an all-nighter like me, it's a no-win situation. Either my question makes her angry - or I call her at midnight for approval of the question, and she gets angry for waking her up.
(It should be noted my TV station's web site has had a poll question posted about a war with Iraq for more than three weeks. I don't dare touch that one now, either -- but then, I'm the only one who still remembers it enough to post results on the air.)
Perhaps it's just me, but the focus in our station's evening news lately has been on flag-waving and soldier support. Local people against a war with Iraq don't seem to get much air time - perhaps out of fear someone from Fort Benning will hold a live-fire exercise on their block.
If any reader here is offended that I posted a question asking if the armed forces are spoiled, I apologize. This issue apparently proves when people say, "There are no stupid questions," other people consider that a stupid answer.