Have you ever been in the news - radio, TV, newspaper, other written
publication?  For a graduation, wedding, sports event, personal
accomplishment, or just because the reporter needed some fill material?  What
sorts of things do people have to do to end up in the news?

41 responses total.

I brought this up because Monday, as Jim was biking home early in the rain,
in a bright yellow slicker, someone from the Ann Arbor News wanted his photo,
and Wednesday David e-mailed us that JIm's photo was in the paper (local),
'going home early from his job at a construction site.' (Jim does not have
a job, he was insulating a house we are building, but reporters are not all
that concerned with the facts).  He was also photographed a couple of years
ago exiting a rummage sale with a large Santa-Klaus type bag over his shoulder
containing among other things 2 speakers, a broken umbrella, broken shades,
broken clock, and an old rug (the reporter got the list right that time).
I got in the Manchester News once because a friend and I were the only guests
at the grand opening of the Solar Currents solar electric facility west of
town who happened to actually be looking at the solar collectors -- the rest
were busy making and listening to speeches and eating cake and punch.

I've been in the Ann Arbor News twice.  The first time was back 
in 1989.  I'd just finished the Dexter-Ann Arbor 10k race,
and was standing under a spray of water past the finish line.
Another runner was sharing the spray at the same time, and we
both got snapped.

The second time was because of my participation on MNet. One
of the News reporters, Jud Brannam, logged on and asked various
users about life online.  He contacted a number of us for 
photo ops.  I agreed, as did Dave Byrne (lmaster) and Larry
Kestenbaum (polygon on MNet, as here).  

I've been in the Snooze several times.  Once was for an article on 
the Internet Council.  The other times were when they published press
releases I sent them whenever I was awarded a contract to do a web
site.  I've also been one of the people interviewed for a feature on
home workers in Internet World.

Oh yes, I was also on local cable TV when I did the first TV spot
for Grex.

(I've been in the Ann Arbor News a couple of times. once was a picture that
I was included in of the Martin Luther King Day march organized by Second
Baptist Church. I think it might have been the first or second march.)

(I was also featured several times while I was a carrier for the news. I
was their Carrier of the Week once, Carrier of the Month twice, a Carrier
of the Year, and their 1991 Young Columbus representative.)

(while not really a news show, I was once a featured guest on "Plan B,"
which was a show that had 2 or 3 episodes on community access. my 
appearance was related to the alternative newspaper I'd founded along
with Maciek Nowak while in high school.)

(come to think of it, I've pribly appeared on a few broadcasts of local
school board meetings, related to my participation in student government
during high school.)

I was in a picture in an article about Theater Guild's trip to Scotland.  I
was used as the background to a temperatures section of a weather report once,
many years ago.

I was on "Access Soapbox" on Community Channel 9 about three years ago.

I also saw a brief glimpse of myself on the Channel 4 news, when I was sitting
down and relaxing after the first "Aid For Aids" walk.

As someone involved in politics for quite a few years, and held elective
office, my name got into the paper quite a bit.  I wish I had saved all
of my press clippings.

On the whole, I *like* reporters; I talk to them readily; I don't envy
their jobs; and I know they're usually overworked and underpaid.  Perhaps
as a consequence, though, along with massive ongoing staff turnover that
robs newspapers of focused experience, reporters are all too often
clueless about the stuff they're assigned to report on. 

In the last 25 plus years of dealing with public issues and newspapers in
various cities, I have never seen a newspaper story of more than a few
lines, about something on which I had direct personal knowledge, that was
COMPLETELY right.

That being said, though, I must confess that I am very impressed with the
Ann Arbor News in comparison to all the other local papers I've dealt
with.  Covering local stuff and getting it right seems to matter to them.

I had a picture in the Ann Arbor news a couple of days ago in a random article
in the local section.  The photographer was a friend's father, though, so I
don't know if it counts :)

I've been in the Ann Arbor News a few times, mostly when I was involved in
high school politics a few years ago.  After I stopped being directly involved
in school politics, I started covering the school board  for the school paper,
and hanging out with the professional reporters a lot.  I stopped being
written about at that point, but it gave me a good view of how the
professional news organizations work.

A few years ago my picture was on the MSU State News, standing with some other
people in a big student house we all lived in.

More recently, I was quoted in the Ann Arbor News about Grex having to move
(out of the Dungeon, we ended up in the current Pumpkin).

Sometimes to get into the news it's sufficient to have some
association, however slight, with someone else who's in the
news. I went to both college and graduate school with Ted
Kaczinski, although I didn't know him well. When the Unabomber
arrest story broke, I got called and interviewed by a number
of reporters from all over the country. So far as I know,
though, I was quoted by name only in the Michigan Daily, the
University of Michigan student newspaper.

I was in the news once.  Two cops had me face-down on the hood of my
rum-runner, reading me my rights.  No!  Just kidding.  They interviewed
me and had a shot of me and my bicycle for Earth Day.  They also have 
several shots of me in my kayak on the Huron River that never made it
in the paper as far as I know.  (I guess they don't like to run shots
of people when they don't get their name ;-)

Oh, my wife and I have also had our pictures in the Manchester paper
several times after placing or winning their annual canoe race.  Lots
of fun, that!

I was shown in an article in the Rogers City newspaper and in a film shown
on Mort Neff's _Michigan Ootdoors_ when I led an expedition to lower Mort
Neff's photographer into a 100' deep sinkhole in Alpena County.  (We
didn't lose him....). I also was interviewed by CNN and shown in a snippet
on TV in connection with the dumping of trash in sinkholes in Alpena
County, and efforts to stop the practice and clean up the mess (the
Detroit River scene used as background for interviews on Ch 7 is a picture
on the wall of a basement room). I was also interviewed during a visit to
a cave in Indiana to discuss cave vandalism and pollution when I was
president of the National Speleological Society - the TV team was for a
national network, but I no longer remember which: the TV photographers
were also very amusing because they treated their cameras like eggs going
into the cave, but were using them as handholds plunged into mud banks on
the way out....).

We had several color shots of our stainless steel roof (the only part of a
house we are building that we did not do ourselves) in the Nickel Development
Institute's quarterly publication, the same issue that featured the Chrysler
Building in NYC, also with a stainless roof.  This is because we called all
over the country asking for details on how to build a roof, and this institute
sent us lots of free info and recommended a good local roofer, and then asked
if we minded their publishing something.  The photographer that they located
(by calling Photo 1, they thought it was a photographer) turned out to be a
friend of a friend.  Jim helped him climb the phone pole for good shots.  This
is the only time in my life I have been referred to in print (not electronic)
as 'Keesan' (no first name).  Details were correct, except that it was a
Canadian publication and spelled us as Ann Arbour.  We got two copies.

Shouldn't that be Anne Arbour?  ;-)

        Back around 1970 the coming of the Chinese ping pong team was big
news. I happened to be at the airport when they arrived and for the next 2
weeks i heard, from many people, that i was shown a few times.
        Also about 1987 channel 4 did a story on the place i worked (slow news
day?) and i was shown working.

I was in the paper for numerous spelling bees, sports events through school,
and Color Guard when we were invited to perform as part of the Orange Bowl
halftime show in 1993.  Most recently, I was on the news because they were
interviewing businesses on Westnedge about how the construction this coming
summer will affect business.  We were slammed, and Jeremy and I were trying
to rush pizzas down the line and get them in the oven while this annoying
woman was shoving the camera and mic in our way.  =)  I said, "Excuse me" more
than anything else.

Where or what is Westnedge?  And how does a person become a backdrop for
temperatures (Senna)?

  Westnedge is the main drag in Kalamazoo.

Isn't there a song or two about Kalamazoo?  Jim thinks something like Nadine
or Why can't you be true?  Are there songs about Ann Arbor?

i appeared in a segment of the evening news on one of the major network
stations in detroit in 1987 when i was on the michigan peace march for global
nuclear disarmament.  

i have been mentioned in articles in the ann arbor news referring to the hash
bash and a play i appeared in and another play for which i designed the set.

Westnedge is one of the main highways in Kalamazoo.  It stretches from the
northernmost section through downtown then into Portage until it hits the end
of the Portage limits and veers off to the southeast.  I have no idea where
it ends.  That's why I love when I ask people where their street is located
when they're trying to determine if we deliver to them and they say, "I'm off
Westnedge."  ;-)  My response is, "Okay - we've narrowed it down to twenty
miles or so..."

Glenn Miller wrote a song for his friend who met a girl in Kazoo called, "I've
Got a Gal in Kalamazoo".  

  Apart from the usual high-school stuff in my hometown newspaper,
  my only brush with journalism in Ann Arbor has been an indirect
  mention of my role as victim in the Ann Arbor News' epic saga
  "Gunmen Rob Man, Force Him Into Trunk".

  Based on experience to date I think I'll forego my chances at
  future publicity, thanks..  :-)

This item jogged my memory.  I was once on TV back in college when
I was part of a St. Patrick's day tug-of-war at the University of
Detroit. My team won.

I was on TV Skopje (Macedonia) a while ago.  I was renting a room in Ohrid
(a tourist town) from a nice family that got me and my friends free concenrt
tickets, etc., and the husband had a friend who needed to interview tourists.
(I was not exactly a tourist, I was researching dialect phonology there), and
I was the only foreigner available who spoke MAcedonian.  SO I bussed over
to the next town over, waited out the 5 hour delay by visiting friends there,
and was asked whether I thought Ohrid should have more souvenirs.  The correct
answer was 'yes', I was trying to be nice.  Later this turned out to be useful
while interviewing people in a village who insisted I was lying and was
actually not a foreigner but from the capital city (I had picked up that
accent and spoke something grammatically closer to the literary language than
they did, this was a real compliment for me), until someone remembered seeing
me on TV.  Then I was a 'real' foreigner and they all wanted to talk to me.

Well, I don't know if this counts as being "in the news" but I wrote
several articles for the "University News" at Boise State University.
And one for the Ensian , when I was at the U. of M.

One such article was about the general reaction of various religious/
lesbian/gay groups to the fact that condom vending machines were being
installed in the dorms. 

This one was fascinating. It got a lot of reaction. It's a funny feeling
to walk around a campus and see every other person reading your stuff
and making comments to it. I wanted to jump in and answer them right there.

Oh, if I remember right, I think my picture was in the same U. News as
a member of the local student govt. too.

  I once wrote a nice article about Grex for CONNECT magazine and got paid
$50 for it. I don't have the issue, but I still have the article in electronic
form on my Mac hard drive. That is probably going to be my 15 minutes of fame.

I also have been mentioned in the Vassar College daily, the Miscellany News,
in relation to my activities on the Varsity Fencing team.

RE #29 Vassar College is my sister's alma mater, and presently, her employer
(in the college library).

Rer #21: I don't know about songs about Ann Arbor, although Bob Segar's
"Down on Main Street" would seem to be a likely candidate. George Bedard
had a song about the Huron River, and Dick Siegal also had one about
Angelo's restaurant. Still, I suspect Seagr's song is the only one with
national recognition. BTW, one thing many may not know is that Neil Young
lived in A2 in the late 60s and wrote "Cinnamon Girl" about a woman from
here . . . .

Was the Down on Main Street song about Ann Arbor in particular, or about all
towns with Main Streets?  Do you have the words handy?
I helped write up the cooking contest for my high school literary magazine,
whose editorial staff I was appointed to because my home room teacher was the
advisor.  I think the winner of the contest was mock apple pie from Ritz
crackers.  Our high school did not teach cooking, it was a classical school.
We won the citywide posture contest every year, which the gym teacher claimed
was due to our having learned to carry home all those books properly.

I don't remember hearing any mentions of a specific town in Down on Main
Street, but since Segar was from Ann Arbor, it seems possible.

 What a coincidence. I have Bob Seger in the CD Changer as I type these words.

  From Bob Seger's Greatest Hits liner notes.

 "Many people have asked me what street I'm talking about
  in this song. It's actually Ann St. just off Main Street
  in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where I grew up and went to school.
  There was this pool hall (I can't remember the name) where
  they had girls dancing in the windows and R&B bands playing 
  on the weekends"
_________________________________________________________________

   I remeber standing on the corner at midnight
   Trying to get my courage up
   There was this long lovely dancer in a little club downtown
   I loved to watch her do her stuff
   Through the long lonely nights she filled my sleep
   Her body softly swaying to that smoky beat
   Down on Mainstreet

   In the pool halls, the hustlers and the losers
   I used to watch them through the glass
   Well I'd stand there at closing time
   Just to watch her walk on past
   Unlike all the other ladies, she looked so young and sweet
   As she made her way alone down that empty street
   Down on Mainstreet

   And sometime even now, when I'm feeling lonely and beat
   I drift back in time and I find my feet
   Down on Mainstreet
   Down on Mainstreet

 copyright 1976 Gear publishing co.
 Reprinted without permission.

Wow, I'm giving away my age here, but Bob must be refering to the block
opposite the courthouse. Its now been "gentrified" but it used to be quite
a wild block. Even in High School we new its reputation as one of the wildest
parts of A2 . . . . And, yes, there was a pool hall (or two).

  I remember my cousin's bar (The Star Bar, later becoming the Star Lounge)
which was right next to the old Washtenaw county jail, and right beside the
Greyhound station. Being that I was only 12, I don't remember too much of what
his clientele looked like, but I know he did have live music and it was pretty
wild on the weekends. 
  Sadly, the bar and my cousin are both gone. But the memories linger on.

i wondered there for a moment if you were a cousin of Joe Tiboni, of Joe's
Star Lounge...  But he is *definitely* not gone, so i guess not...

 My cousin's name was Donald Wein, who owned it from the early 50's until the
mid 70's. I guess he sold it to Joe after his wife died.

Was he the guy that put in the red metal-flake seating (that Joe pulled out
when he took over)?

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss