Cincinnati Enquirer on WKRP

“Gay. Straight. We’ve got it all!” Here’s the fairly-decent-for-major-news-media local story on the WKRP rally. I’ll post some photos and anecdotes tonight. We managed to miss most of it, but we had a great time Saturday night. Thanks Leslie, Casey, and all you other XYLs.

9 thoughts on “Cincinnati Enquirer on WKRP”

  1. Special Thanks to the Enquirer for butchering a conversation and turning it into a sound bite!
    Before everyone starts in on me I would like to put out into the cyber world where and how that quote came about. The reporter asked a friend and me about the diversity of the club and scooterists in general.

    friend: Look around – punk rock to corporate suits, artists. carpenters computer geeks, radio dj’s
    me: black, white, beige, pink, blue, green
    friend: young, old, and all the way in-between
    me: gay, straight – we’ve got it all.

    Thank you Enquirer. Your ability to simplify is mystifying!

  2. Leslie, my intention in posting that was not to make fun of you, but the paper. I’m sure all our readers know what you meant and we’ve all been quoted out of context about a thousand times. All in all, it was a fairly decent story, it could have been much worse. I know how much work you put into the rally (Casey gives you most of the credit) and I saw how stressed you were Saturday night, but you can be sure your work paid off, and everybody’s great memories of the rally will last way longer than that quote.

    A recent inquiry from a journalist on the Chicago list went more or less unanswered, and when i tried to explain to the reporter why most scooterists are uninterested in talking to the media, she got all huffy, so it’s funny that your out-of-context quote and that horrible DC story came along shortly afterwards, to justify (in my head at least) my comments to the reporter.

    That said, it’s maybe not the reporter’s fault. I’ve worked for newspapers, and many decisions have to be made last minute, late at night, and the reporter is rarely involved in that process. First, the editors have their way with it, then headlines and captions are usually written long after the reporter’s gone home, and large chunks of text are routinely mangled by interns and layout artists at the last minute with little supervision from senior staff.

  3. I thank you for your support. As soon as I saw it in the paper my phone started ringing.

    I also thank you for sharing the other article. Another magazine has been inquiring and planning a story. As one of the writers is a friend I hadn’t given it much thought. Now I will be asking for advanced copy before it goes to print.

  4. Sure thing, leslie. I don’t think anyone’s out to get us, and it’s not limited to scooterists, people get misquoted all the time, and any reporter is going to want to try to make their subject more interesting, which often makes it look like the subject is trying to appear to be interesting, which often makes the subject look silly and/or conceited. I guess that’s why rock stars complain about not being understood.

    When I was talking to the reporter on our list, I mentioned Hunter S. Thompson’s book “Hells Angels” which was a very enjoyable and well-written book in which HST gave the club every opportunity to speak for themselves, and wrote about them (individually, anyway) generally favorably, yet while the Angels welcomed HST to their world and loved the idea of a book being written about them, once it came out they hated it and felt used for having their exciting and private world exploited for Thompson’s and the publisher’s profit.

    I love scooters and I’m happy to share them (and my opinions) with the world, but you have to think about the motivation behind a news media story.

    Journalism is like graphic gesign: it’s often described as “creative,” but the best practicioners follow a strict set of rules and present the most useful amount of information in an unbiased and clear manner. Unfortunately, those who interject their own personality or agenda, or add unnecessary clutter into their work are the ones who get attention, so both occupations reward practitioners that have forgotten the basic premises of their careers.

  5. And just to be clear, 2strokebuzz is nothing resembling journalism, it’s a blog where I am free to say whatever crazy wackness I like. If it was journalism, there’d be ads all over it and i’d be rich.

  6. I now understand that what they want is everything summed up in 3-5 words. I can handle that but it won’t be anything that they can print.

    suck my left…….
    kiss my lily white…..

    I should know better than to talk to anyone w/ pen in hand. Generally what I have to say is not what people want to hear.

  7. and trust me- I gots nuttin bad to say about 2stroke. I would never include you in the “they” I was referring to.

  8. As Casey points out on the XYL list:
    “if you think about it, gay and straight covers just about all of us.”
    Good point, ha.

  9. Ohhhh, Leslie, been there. Don’t let it get you down, life’s too short.

    (But while I’m dwelling on it, my favorite instance was my brief diatribe about how important it is for people, but especially women, to be able to perform their own basic maintenance on their older scooters. How did it come out? “Men like a woman who can get her hands dirty”. I kid you not, quotes and all. Oh, yeah, and that article ended up syndicated. Ouch!)

    And that article Ginger got so upset about? On the front page was my friend John on his Serveta. Caption? “(my name) rides a Vespa”. I emailed the editor about how the picture was of a tall man with a white helmet riding a Lambretta, and I am a short girl with a silver helmet who was riding a Vespa. They never replied, but they did eventually at least change my name to his. I didn’t even talk to that reporter, so I’m not even sure how I ended up in the mix there.

    I’m still sorry I missed WKRP.

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