ON RESPONSIBLE REPORTING

Recently, an article came out about our new improv group. We were interviewed on Monday night for the article - there was no tape recorder present, and the man interviewing us took some notes. We didn't know how the interview went, but it seemed okay. We talked about comedy, some things we've done in our past, and some other things in our life.

The article came out yesterday, and is fairly inaccurate. And while all of the simple factual errors bother me, and the assembled quotes bother me, I have to be happy that at least our group's name is out there, right? Someone probably said "Any publicity is good publicity," and that's what I have to keep reminding myself.

Speaking of publicity, at this Sunday's MTV Movie Awards, Sacha Baron Cohen - dressed as his character "Bruno," descended from the rafters, landing directly on Eminem. Eminem was upset by this turn of events and stormed out. There was a lot of buzz about whether or not the incident was staged, which is good publicity for MTV, Cohen, and Eminem.

The "responsible reporting" factor comes in shortly after. One of the writers for MTV wrote on his personal blog that the whole incident was planned and rehearsed and staged. News organizations (including Yahoo!) picked up on this and reported it. However, the post was soon taken down. Some took this as maintaining the possibility that the incident was NOT scripted, but that it was a writer continuing to poke fun at the situation (which, I might add, would be a GREAT way to follow it up had it NOT been scripted).

I guess my concern is about the availability and accuracy of information that is reported through news organizations, be they small local papers or multinational conglomerates. There was a story a few weeks ago about a student who faked a quote from a composer on Wikipedia, and how many stories printed the quote as fact straight from Wikipedia. If this is going to be the case following my death, let the record show that I was a fantastic kisser. Report it as fact!