Just For TV Teachers

Mitch and Casey were hoping to shoot a story about a runaway everyone
called “Ponyboy,” but not because he was an S. E. Hinton fan. Ponyboy
never read much more than the nearest street sign. The name was actually
pinned on him by his late father, who trained horses on a farm just north
of the city until Ponyboy was 14. After dad passed away, the family fell
apart, and ‘Richard Joe Cants’ disappeared from home, from school, and from
anything close to a normal teen life.

Since they only had four more days to shoot a story for a national
broadcasting contest, the young reporter and photographer were anxious to
catch up with their runaway, who sent word he’d meet them at the “acid
tunnel,” a notorious hang-out underneath the interstate, ironically
located about six blocks from Highway Patrol Trood D headquarters on east
Kearney Street. Nothing much went on in the acid tunnel that a state
trooper would approve of, so Casey was starting to make noise about just
“forgetting the whole thing.”

“He’ll show up. Chill. Nobody’s here. Look.”

Comforting words from Mitch, who had a flashlight bigger than the Canon GL
2 camera they brought with them for the interview. As it beamed a shaft
of light into the opening of the acid tunnel, about the only thing they
saw was graffiti painted on the concrete walls. Some of the words and phrases would
definitely not make it into their story.

Amber Lynn, one of the girls in Mitch’s P.E. class who “knew people” from
the wrong side of the tracks, had told him about Ponyboy a few weeks back
during a day neither of them dressed out for P.E. Mitch kept that
information to himself, knowing it would make a great story. Now it was
time to cash in. Amber had set it all up. The interview would be at 6
p.m. She couldn’t come, so the boys only had her description of Ponyboy
as they watched and waited.

“If this guy has other people with him, I’m out of here,” said Casey.
About that time, a twig breaks in the distance. Someone steps on an
aluminum can. Now feet crunching on gravel. Suddenly, a shadow near the
tunnel opening.

“Are you guys from HTV?” The voice came from a long, skinny body that
matched Amber’s description. The twilight had dimmed, and it was hard to
see facial features.

“We’re Amber’s friends. I’m Mitch.”

“We gotta do this somewhere else. Some people are coming here soon, and
they aren’t my friends, or yours. We need to get now.”

Casey didn’t have to be told twice. He was already walking up the small
hill they had previously climbed down to get to the opening in front of
the tunnel. Mitch asked Ponyboy if he wanted to ride with them.

“I will if you’ll make a stop on the way.” The runaway wasn’t asking, really.

Mitch looked at Casey, who was almost to the car.

“Where you need to go?”

“Take me to the emergency room.”

That’s when the lights from an 18-wheeler passing overhead on the highway
illuminated a stream of blood along the left side of Ponyboy’s head and
neck. Mitch couldn’t tell if he’d been hit, or shot. He yelled at Casey
as Ponyboy passed out and fell to the ground.

The interview would have to wait.

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School newspapers have to do something, and fast. They can not fall victim to the ecomony the way the professional press is. Newspapers are shrinking, or evaporating, before our very eyes. Kids need the experience of putting out a paper. It’s so educational, so cool, and so real. Nothing beats that feeling of holding your story or photo in your hands. I love the feel of newsprint. I also remember the thrill of seeing others read my stories, and those great letters-to-the-editor from someone who wanted to take issue with something I wrote.

So what I’m going to suggest probably flies in the face of conventional wisdom, but the best way to keep your school newspaper vital and important to your community is to publish MORE of them, not less. Smaller, but more frequent, editions of the paper will make it timely and important to your readers. These days, thanks to the Web, timely is more crucial than ever.

The paper at our school used to be a weekly in the 60s and 70s, and now we receive only four “newsmagazines” a year. Four. It’s eight pages full of features and photos. Not really news, because they have lost the ability to do anything timely by publishing quarterly. I understand there are a lot of factors that led to the decision to do four issues per year, but when I learned to love journalism, it was by working on a four-page paper that published every Friday. We had a readership, and we built expectations in that readership. They knew every seventh day they could read news on page one, opinion and op-ed on page two, features on page three, and sports on page four. Ads were placed at the bottom of three and four.

So my first suggestion is for schools to lose the 12-page, every-three-week or four-week features-fest and start covering news again. Every week. It’s worth a try.

Then the second way to save your school newspaper is obvious–you must take it to the Web. Make your paper available online for those who don’t get the hard copy. You can even use the web version to do some DAILY updates, making your site a real source of timely information.

One place you can get some help with that Internet component is here: http://www.highschooljournalism.org/

The best thing we TV teachers can do is make sure our school newspapers don’t disappear. We need the competition, our school needs the recorded history, and guess what? Not every student is suited for a broadcast class. Let’s do what we can to encourage all forms of journalism during a crucial time for the printed word.

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The absolute worst show on TV is ***SPOILER ALERT*** “The Secret Life of the American Teenager.”

It is so bad, on so many levels, that I’m sure it will be a long-running hit on the Family Channel. It’s so putrid, yet I suspect its mesmerized fan base may not even realize it. That’s right, if you love this show, you’re an idiot, or stand by to prove you aren’t. I can just see teens and tweens texting back and forth about Ben and Amy and their dilemmas every Monday night. Or actually having phone conversations about all the dysfunction they witness, all born of the mind of Brenda Hampton, who brought us “Seventh Heaven,” where no cliche was ever safe, no acting teacher ever proud.

The drama that drives “SLOTAT” (my abbreviation–wonder if it will catch on? LOL) is this: Amy had sex for the first time at band camp last summer, and ***SPOILER ALERT*** she’s pregnant! The boy who helped get her that way is Ricky, who is, of course, the baaaaaaaad boy who carries on a “friends with benefits” relationship with Adrian, the smarmy sleaze who wears low-cut blouses no public school outside of southern California would allow. Alas, she is from a broken home. That explains why this girl’s morals would make a pimp blush.

Back to Ben. Since he and Amy are 15, and he loves Amy so completely, he decides to marry her. Happens all the time, right? Two lovestruck kids from upper-middle-class families in southern California run off with fake IDs and get hitched. The smart adults on this show, and by that I mean stupid adults, got to the bottom of that one and made everyone realize that ***SPOILER ALERT*** because they used fake IDs, Ben and Amy weren’t really legally married at all.

Amy has a little sister, Ashley, who is the token “rebel without a cause.” She wears lots of dark clothes, which of course gives her “attitude.” (Somebody tell her 1991 needs its wardrobe back) Ashley has that dry, monotone delivery. You know the kind: “I’m the smartest kid in the room. You all suck.”

Amy and Ashley can always feel better about themselves by looking at their nimrod parents. Anne, the mom, is played by Molly Ringwald, who would have been better off marrying Ducky when she had the chance. Her estranged husband is so anxious to be “close to his girls” that he secretly ***SPOILER ALERT*** moves into the garage. I laughed until I stopped on that one. What a twist. Just keepin’ it real, eh Brenda?

The adults at home are not to be outdone in this show. The adults at school are also lacking a healthy flow of oxygen, letting a teen run a fake ID production lab out of a counselor’s office. To bust the kid who was making the IDs, they do what all wise administrators do–they page him by name on the PA system. “Come get busted now!”

The fact that Steve Schirripa, who played Bobby on the “Sopranos” all those years, is now playing Ben’s father on this show makes me sad. I keep waiting for him to just make Ben and Amy an offer they can’t refuse.

Hampton stays close to her heavenly roots by giving us the “good, Christian girl” named Grace (you can smell the irony, right?), and alas, she’s fallen for Ricky the Baaaaaaaaad Boy. She’s going to be so upset when she finds out about Ricky and Adrian on a “very special SLOTAT” episode in the very near future.

Grace has a special needs brother, and he ***SPOILER ALERT*** falls hard for a special needs girl on their first date. It’s so cute, yet so heartbreaking. But cute.

Cute is how I would describe the major plot points on this show. It’s cute that Amy’s mom actually tells her she’ll need to get a job and take care of her baby when it’s born. Amy finds out after one whole day of looking that it’s hard to get a job! Who knew? It was also cute when the jock took the rap for the kid who actually made those fake IDs. Those dumb cops, and the nosy school counselor, seemed unable to do anything about this miscarriage of justice. Again, adults are basically brain-dead on this show.

The program is about comfortable teens who are always in a little trouble, but not really. There is never any real drama. Everything will work out for these rich, spoiled, self-absorbed young people. They have more safety nets than most of the teens I know. Real life is not this way.

Maybe that’s the worst thing about “SLOTAT.” Just when you think your real challenges are going to get the best of you, kids, and that nobody understands, this show makes you realize that somewhere, a staff of writers and producers, all educated, highly-paid grown-ups, have absolutely no idea what the real American teen faces everyday, or how to portray it on TV.

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I went along to watch an HTV crew do an interview the other day. It was the first time I’ve done that in maybe 15 years, aside from those occasions when we ventured out as an entire staff to shoot a special project or show. So why the interest in this story?

Lauren and Alex, two of my seniors, found Edward Skiffington, a retired soldier who lives on the south side of town. He was the reason I wanted to tag along. “Skiff” is a World War II veteran. He fought in General Patton’s Third Army. You know, the one that marched through Europe after D-Day, defeating the enemy left and right. In fact, he was there the day Patton gave that famous speech immortalized on screen by George C. Scott in the movie, “Patton.” Rent it if you haven’t seen it. Skiff’s descriptions of the real Patton were priceless. He recalled how the General would drive up in a jeep and “rally” the troops with a few choice words. I heard those words in a movie, but Skiff heard them in person 65 years ago on a battlefield.

The girls’ interview provided me with a chance to listen to a 90-year-old hero describe experiences from his life that most of us just read about. Not only did he fight in the Third Army in the last world war, he also saw action in Korea, serving in a famous integrated unit some white soldiers would not be a part of. Skiff said, “I am from Massachussetts, and it was no big deal to me. But there were some it really bothered.” I bet.

He described in detail how lucky he was to survive an attack by the Chinese one day while his unit was on patrol. They took heat from the enemy on both sides of them, and barely got off the road where they were sitting ducks for a few eternal minutes.

Skiff talked proudly, but realistically, about his service. He was single during WWII, which allowed him to joke about the ladies in Paris, all this while his wife sat nearby in the kitchen. I’m sure she’s heard it all before. Lauren and Alex had a few laughs about that one. He also smiled and claimed whiskey got them through the tough times as much as anything back then. I’d say a stiff drink was about the only thing that helped after he walked into a concentration camp the day the Third Army arrived to liberate it in ‘45.

The scenes he described were right out of the accounts you can read in history books. He saw the emaciated prisoners. The German soldiers had fled the camp before Patton’s troops arrived, so the only people left were the civilians who were starving and nearing death. Skiff saw the showers, and heard the prisoners explain that something other than water rained down in there. He also saw the gas chambers, where the bodies from those deadly showers were taken for disposal. He had a few choice words for the “fella in Iran” who recently said the Holocaust didn’t really happen.

I heard once that over 1,000 World War II veterans were dying everyday, and that was several years ago. These men and women are living, breathing history, and when you have a chance to hear someone like Skiff in person, do it. Won’t it be great to share his story with the HTV audience in a few weeks? I don’t know if it meets our usual “do teens care?” criteria. I hope so. But it certainly meets our other one, the “should teens care?” test.

Finally, here’s a big “thanks” to Lauren and Alex for letting me hang around in the background. It’s an hour of my life I will always value, and I pretty sure they feel the same way.

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