Two notes on Wade Goodwyn’s Morning Edition report from the Ft. Hood memorial service. First:
As the mourners walked away under a brilliant Texas sky, their mood did not match the weather.
It’s embarrassing enough that he was contemplating a clichéd “their faces were as overcast as the sky” transition at all. But when the weather doesn’t cooperate, “whatever, we’ll just flip it” is not an acceptable strategy. Second, I can just barely imagine some reporter, with the right reading, managing to sell freshman comp treacle like this:
Their books are pockmarked with pictures of young men, handsome and brave, whose children never knew them, whose mothers’ and fathers’ barely tolerable pain is forever concealed beneath a cloak of patriotism and devotion to country.
…but it really doesn’t work when you actually recite it in the monotone of a bored freshman reading last night’s comp homework. I understand that it’s hard to do justice to events like these, but you guys could at least act like you’re trying.
6 responses so far ↓
1 Doug // Nov 11, 2009 at 10:30 am
Bless your heart, bless your hope. I wouldn’t have expected any better.
2 Kerry Howley // Nov 11, 2009 at 12:40 pm
Truly amazing how much access this guy has to his subjects’ interiority. It’s not about phoning it in, it’s about bald presumption.
3 Emily // Nov 11, 2009 at 6:46 pm
Good lord. That’s almost Woodian. “The sky to which he had once looked was now only a covering for her dead body. The ever-beautiful flowers she had planted with her own hands became nothing more than the lost roses of her cheeks.”
4 len // Nov 13, 2009 at 3:18 am
for nearly twenty years wade goodwyn has been a real live working reporter in the reddest of red states – Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma. he’s dispatched daily coverage of perhaps the most infamous and grisly events in american history including Waco, Columbine and OKC. julian honey have you ever even been _near_ Texas much less Oklahoma?
5 Cornelia // Dec 20, 2016 at 1:38 pm
sentada numa sala de onde é fácil observar hordas de estudantes nos rituais acéfalos das praxes, quadtas-ies-fimas e afins, não é difÃcil imaginar que o terreno está bem preparado para tão cativantes ideias (pseudo) virtuais.
6 http://www./ // Dec 30, 2016 at 5:52 am
Calling all cars, calling all cars, we’re ready to make a deal.