Accomplished Times
Today was one which offered lots to think about... in terms of accomplishments...moments in time...and entire eras.
Tiffany graduated in the rain...but I awoke to photos she had emailed showing her amid the storms and Harvard heraldry carrying a funky green umbrella and wearing a bright red flower.
I saw joy.
Today my company also honored one of my co-workers, a man I've worked with almost every day since I started at the radio station nearly 21 years ago. At that time, he had already been there nearly 30 years.
We were marking Bob Guthrie's 50th anniversary at WOAI...an amazing accomplishment in any industry, and nearly unheard of in broadcasting.
When you factor in that his career started out with promotional materials such as this:
Well, it's even more astounding.
For the record, Bob is extremely distinguished. He has aged well, admittedly removing the giant Buddy Holly glasses tends to improve anyone's appearance.
These days, there's no way a TV or radio station would use a promotional photo of an employee like that old one of Bob...we are far more focused on glamour even in radio.
So, that was then...and this is now. Today we have Ken and Barbie reading us the news on T.V. - the picture we want to see...the ratings prove it.
I was struck today how beauty and grace...presence and poise...are things we almost expect to be staged.
It succeeds with ceremony and polish...with glamour and glitz...with our blessings.
Yet as the day wore on I couldn't help but think that true dignity must be earned... and sometimes, maybe only once in a while, you can only apprecriate the shining glimmer of joy when there are a few clouds nearby.
posted by Michael
©The Main Point by Michael Main
2 Comments
2 Comments:
Nice kudos for a fellow who seems to have well earned them. My own opinion on most of television news media is it becomes more like a vaudeville performance as it goes. My biggest beef began more than 30 years ago when I watched a certain channel cover the airplane crash on the (9th?) street bridge in D.C. The camera-men walked right down through the gore giving you live on-scene footage. Last week, here locally, a young teenager was killed when his truck rolled and he was tossed out. Once again, the same channel gave us excellent view of the boy's leg sticking out from under the cab of the over-turned vehicle. I sure his parent's appreciated that........
You know that's actually highly unusual. When I actually left the building and covered news I remember numerous occasions where I was standing around TV photographers near a dead or dying body, and they never took shots. I finally asked why and learned their stations didn't permit a dead body, or any portion thereof, to be shown. I vividly remember a gasp and a sigh of futility erupting from a group of photographers who had been standing outside of a house where a death had occurred as the body was finally "wheeled out" on a gurney. It was covered in a yellow tarp, but the victim's hand dropped and was suddenly "uncovered"...all of the tv guys said, "That ruins that shot" knowing they couldn't use it.
San Antonio is a town known for it's "bloody" news...although it's certainly improved since when I first came here and the paper regularly ran full page front page stories like "Boy In Frig Eats Foot."
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