OPINION|
This week it seems I've received more stupid news pitches via email than ever before, and read or viewed more stupid news stories than ever before.
It all started Monday when I received an email with the subject line: “Springfield is the No. 17 Best City for Hot Tub Lovers.”
How does anyone know that?
I read the press release. The metrics included:
*Number of hot tub dealers
*Hot tub installers per 10,000 homes
*Hot tub service providers per 10,000 homes
*Portion of average household income spent on water
To me, using data like the above to declare Springfield No. 17 in hot-tub love would be like me gathering data on restaurants and concluding “Springfield No. 3 City for Those Who Love Soy Sauce.”
In addition, I always had us at No. 29.
Had to think: Do I ‘love' my hot tub?
In addition, I actually have a hot tub. Yet, no one called me.
For me, the press release prompted the question: Do I love my hot tub?
I can't say I do. I'm fond of it, sure, but that's as far as I want to go in our relationship.
When I read press releases like this, I drop to my knees and say a prayer of thanks to God — loved No. 28th in the nation by Springfield residents based on Bibles sold — that I'm not a public relations person and don't have to write press releases like that.
Or like this one, also received this week:
“Nixa is the only town in Missouri where residents leave doors unlocked at night, revealed in study”
Did someone walk Nixa neighborhoods at night checking if doors were locked?
Do people who write these emails and send them to people like me not have editors?
If not an editor, at least someone in the room with a good bullcrap detector?
If that story on Nixa had gone viral, the first thing I would do if I were a Nixa resident would be to start locking my doors at night because, you know, all the riffraff from Ozark would be coming over to steal my stuff and sneak into my hot tub.
Let's officially kill the ‘today's cost of the 12 Days of Christmas' story
This week I watched a local news anchor read a story about what the actual cost would be in 2023 if someone were to purchase all the items mentioned in the song “Twelve Days of Christmas.”
You know the song: “eights maids a-milking, seven swans a-swimming, six geese a laying, five gold rings!”
The story — which I'm sure was not compiled by the news staff at the local news station — said the total cost today for all 12 gifts would exceed $200,000.
And the price for “10 Lords a-Leaping” would be $14,000.
Think about that. I did.
First of all, how do you find a lord? Next, how do you get him to leap?
Do the 10 lords necessarily come from England? If so, does the $14,000 include airfare?
Is it coach or first class?
In other words: Why is this news? It's meaningless.
Maybe it would have been news 30 years ago — back when newspapers had a Page 40 that needed to be filled.
Lunker mascot looks like Creature from the Black Lagoon
And then, in our very own SGF A.M. newsletter, I laid eyes on the Ozark Lunkers mascot for the first time. The Lunkers are Springfield's new Arena Football team.
In general terms, a “lunker,” if you didn't know, is a large fish. As in, “I caught a real lunker today.”
Years ago, when city of Republic officials were secretly luring Amazon to the city, the code name for the effort was “Project Lunker.”
Upon study of the photo of the Lunkers mascot, I'm pretty sure it's a fish. A human-sized fish.
I'm OK with it being a fish, even though a fish would flop around and die on a football field. After all, the NFL's Miami Dolphins have a dolphin as a mascot.
But to me, it's not that easy to discern that the Lunkers mascot is a fish. You must first take in the totality of the outfit. The gestalt, if you will.
You have to do that because it also looks like the Creature From the Black Lagoon, a 1954 movie of the same name.
Do we really need a new state dish?
On top of all this, State Rep. Jamie Gragg, a Republican from Ozark, has pre-filed a bill that would name Springfield-style cashew chicken the state of Missouri's official “dish.”
The current official dish of the Show-Me State is the ice cream cone, which made its debut at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis.
I have nothing against cashew chicken. I like the Leong family. I know several members. They are great people.
In fact, at the Springfield News-Leader I did an in-depth profile of David Leong, who created cashew chicken. I mention prominently in that story that David served this country in World War II; he fought at Normandy on D-Day. He died in 2020 at age 99.
Nevertheless, we don't need a new state dish or a second state dish.
I fear that if we change our state dish, we will be on a slippery-slope to changing our state rock.
In this case, I know exactly how to be a ‘catalyst for good'
Not every reporter agrees with me. I've been amazed at the news coverage Gragg's pre-filed bill has received.
Nevertheless, it's a dumb idea and not news.
In fact, I rank it with a press release we received this week at the Daily Citizen: “Searches for ‘black sequin dress' EXPLODE by 161% after Hailey Bieber's 2023 Academy Museum Gala red carpet look.”
My first thought was this: How do we use this EXPLOSIVE news to advance our mission of public service?
Our calling is on our website: “The mission of the Hauxeda is to inform our community and be a catalyst for good.”
Often, in my view, you can be a catalyst for good by quickly deleting your email.
This is Pokin Around column No. 151.
