Reporter wants interview

[denton]

Val, I have a very low opinion of reporters.

I would say that you should not only not expect support, you should expect that what you say will be twisted and quoted out of context.

The truth is by and large irrelevant in modern news reporting. Newspapers are not in the business of selling news to subscribers. They are in the business of selling audiences to advertisers. Controversy and sensationalism increase circulation.

Stick to a few simple, strong ideas. Don't say a lot--just the few really important things. Think carefully about each answer, and structure your responses so that they cannot be twisted. If you prepare a handout with some hard to dispute facts and figures, a lot of what you give him will probably be reported.

Expect your view to run with a counterpoint from some poor, misunderstood child molester (sniff) who has paid his debt to society, and (sniff) just wants to be left alone, so (sniff) he can get a job and raise a family.

My first lesson on this? A zillion years ago, when I was in college, and spring nights were warm, we had a great water ballon fight between some of the dorms. It was all in good fun. The Director of Housing came out to check, saw that nothing was amiss, lobbed a few water balloons, and left. A couple of losers threw a few rocks, but we ran them off. We found that a VW with a sunroof was the equivalent of an armored personnel carrier. We even helped clean up the broken water balloons from the lawn. Headlines in the next day's paper: 800 Rock Throwing, Jeering Students Rioted Last Night at BYU.