Media
Trained ©
By
Michael Casey
I
was reading a piece about Michael Parkinson the great and best Tv chat show
interviewer, google him if you don’t believe me. What he said chimed with me,
especially as my eldest daughter is doing her exams and will be choosing her A
levels which will then lead to her career. In her case she has decided on being
a Doctor, she is even thinking of being a pathologist. I did quip that at least
she would not kill anybody.
What Michael Parkinson was talking about was
how there are Mickey Mouse degrees and
everybody wants to be in the Media. In other words Andy Warhol was so so right, everybody wants
to be famous, even if it’s only for one series on tv. If we look back we have
Jade Goody, who was famous for being famous, as the BBC reporter said at the
time of her tragic young death.
Now
as a writer do I want to be famous, am I consumed with lust for fame? I may be
consumed with lust for words, and for the wife, but do I want to be on tv and
in magazines and have a column in a glossy magazine found on the floor of my
local hairdressers. The answer is NO. Or should I qualify that, I want the
world to read my words and make some money to give to my girls when I die, I
could bore you about all my aches and pains, let’s say I’ll take the money but
stay anonymous. I could be John Doe on the Radio, which reminds me about my
daughter wanting to be a pathologist.
It’s
said that Media studies is a waste of time, get a degree in English would be a
far better idea. By the way my niece has a 1st in English and has
just done her Masters, so I’d say she’d be perfect as a trainee in a newspaper
, though I would say give me the job instead, before I end up on the
pathologist’s table.
So
how do people get on with Media Studies? Well I studied horoscopes and how
their place in society reveals so much about the ZZ9 strata of society.
You would not believe how the
socio-ignorant believe such drivel, and Daily Mail readers especially, but
let’s leave it there before I upset too
many white middle class women.
We
had a whole module of the place of football in society, it was a compulsory add
on to accountancy for beginners. There was an optional add on for 2 credits
about Press Releases and Football. If you could use as many mixed metaphors in
a paragraph you would get a citation from the course tutor, and he was very very
coarse, he was a rugby player previously, he was always muttering about the Art
of Course Rugby, which this writer read nearly 50 years ago.
A
Media Course may ask you to write something in a variety of ways, objective or
subjective, pro or anti, helpful or deceitful. Rather like the way politicians
are, and they are the same the world over, trying to surf the waves and run
with the tide.
Now
once you have passed your Media training from the University of taking the mick,
whose fees are so low that they are always full, almost like an American
University where if you pay the fee they let you print off your certificate from
the comfort of your own home, without having attended any classes. So what do
you do next?
You
send out your CV, which is shorthand for Completely Vacuous, or resume if you
are an American. Resume should really mean you resume or restart your education
after having wasted 4 years studying Kardashians and watching E! tv for 80 hours a week. Miaow I
hear you say, but you know I’m telling the Truth, and it Hurts.
You
take a selfie in your kitchen cos that’s where the light is best, and you add
it to your completely vacuous CV, then you send it away, only you didn’t notice
that Totoro the cat was sat on the fridge with her tail dangling behind you.
You look like Davey Crocket, E! laugh when they see your photo, but you are a
good looking 20 something so they give
you an interview, so you end up doing animal features for the next 20 years.
Though
you have to pretend you are straight/gay/trans or whatever to keep in with the
management. In the end you just end up confused, but confused is the new grey,
and as the Monkees sang there are only shades of grey, or gray if you are
American.
Would
I do a Media course if I were 40 years younger? No but I would read even more
widely. I would read more newspapers, like I do today, 3 or 4 different ones
every day and 2 or 3 news stations on
tv, and never never forget good old BBC Radio 4. Read and Listen and Talk to everybody, rather
like I did in my 3 years at a 4 star deluxe business hotel. This is I believe is
one of the best ways to learn how to talk to people from all walks of life.
Or
you can be totally vacuous and marry the boss and get him or her to let you
have your own podcast.
p.s. don't forget to buy my 12 books on Amazon
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