When you run short of ideas, present others' views

It is always better to put what others have written in front of your readers when you run short of ideas. It has happened with me more often than not, more especially at the time of the festivals, that I run short of ideas and opinions.

This week, I wished to entertain my valued readers with some excerpts from a book, "When No News, Send Rumors" compiled by an America gentleman, Stephan Bates.

Mr. Bates has compiled some events, incidents and happenings that are all related with the Americal Journalism at different intervals of time.

Without taking mush of your time, I present some of the tid-bits which I collected from the said book which the author himself had presented me when I was in America long long back. The compilation begins:

Hypothetical suicide:

This hypothetical was presented to a group of newspaper publishers, editors, and writers.

"A prominent citizen is vacationing alone in Key West, and his hotel burns down. The wire service story lists him among those escaped uninjured and identifies the hotel as a popular gathering place for affluent gays. The citizen says he'll commit suicide if you publish his name in the story"'.

Nine percent of respondents said the newspaper should omit the man's name. A plurality, 49 percent, said the story should omit the gay angle but include the man's name. Nearly as many respondents, 42 percent, said the entire story—gay angle and name—should be published.

Untold stories: JFK's private life

Many reporters say that they knew about President Kennedy's extramarital affairs, though no articles about them were published during his lifetime. "Social and journalistic customs were different then," in the view of Washington Post columnist Maxine Cheshire. "That simply was not the way one covered the presidency at that time".

# According to a popular story among reporters, when Jacqueline Kennedy was showing a French reporter around the White House, the First Lady pointed to a woman and said in French, "There is the girl my husband is said to be sleeping with"''.

# During the trip to Palm Springs, Douglas Cornell of AP and Robert Pierpoint of CBS saw Kennedy leave a party with a woman other than his wife. The two got into a car, embraced, and disappeared from view. Several minutes later, when someone else approached the car, Kennedy and the woman got out and kissed good-bye.

# According to Maxine Cheshire, late one night during a presidential visit to California, reporters heard a woman's voice coming from the President's suite:; "'I don't give a goddamn if you are the President of the United States." Another time a young woman told Cheshire that she had lost her shot at a high bureaucratic post because she had refused to sleep with the President.

Remarks:

"Journalists are as disruptive a menace to the public body as stones in the gall bladder are to the private body. They are the scavengers of society who, possessing no guts of their own, tear out the guts of celebrities. —Caitlin Thomas, widow of Dylan Thomas.

# "'I want the drug abusers and adulterers to remain in your seats. The homosexuals and lesbians are fine where you are, and the AIDS carriers can stay scattered in the crowd. Let's have the alcoholics, liars and cheats sit in every other seat. Those of you without sin, stain, or stigma, please raise your hands, unless, of course, there's something you want to tell me about your neighbor—see me afterward and I promise your name will be protected.—Julian Bond, former Georgia state senator who had been accused of using cocaine, in a speech to reporters.

# "Damn it, what do they want me to do? Go down to the press room and drop my pants and say, 'Here it is'?"—President Reagan to press aides who wanted to announce that he had a urinary tract infection.

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