The View From Here: Informed people were hard to find
Much ado has been made of President Bush’s second inauguration, or at least the costs of it.
I fully support anyone’s right to either agree or disagree, whether they be Republican, Democrat, Independent or anything else, but to me, it seems like a lot of money.
More disturbing to me was when I was assigned a “man on the street” interview on the subject earlier this week. These interviews usually entail a newspaper person standing out on the street somewhere and asking people, mostly strangers, what they think about a particular subject. The interviews are obviously not prearranged and they don’t happen by themselves.
Since it was cold, I decided to go to public buildings, where anybody has a right to peacefully be, whether they work at newspaper or not. I asked, “What do you think of the costs of the presidential inauguration?”
The answers were disturbing.
“I can’t do that,” one lady told me. “I don’t know anything about it.”
I tried another gentleman, who promptly responded, “I didn’t see it.”
The disturbing part about that answer was that the inauguration had not happened yet. And although I would like to believe most people know when the presidential inauguration is supposed to be held, as it turned out, more than one person answered similarly — in the past tense.
I trudged upstairs, hoping for better luck in finding someone willing to share their opinion. I got rejected, but at least I got honesty there.
“I’m not scared to talk to you,” another gentleman piped. “I just don’t want to.”
My hopes of finding people willing to speak openly about their beliefs, whatever they turned out to be, were not to become reality there, so I moved on.
When I went to another public building, it was more of the same — more people who didn’t want to talk, more people who said they didn’t know very much about it, more people who would say something but who wanted nothing to do with it when they realized their names and photographs were needed.
In any case, I usually don’t operate the way most journalists are assumed to operate. We don’t typically eavesdrop on conversations and then put them in the paper. We don’t come looking to bust someone’s chops all the time for no reason.
So to be fair to people, what I usually do on any assignment is to announce my presence, as that is the ethical thing to do, and tell them what I’m doing there. If it’s private property, I ask permission to stay.
This time, the reaction I received at the public place was more disturbing than the non-answers were. The person behind the desk had to call a supervisor, who tried to reach another supervisor who wasn’t there, who then called the top people to make sure it was OK that I was there.
I guess this reaction bothers me so much because I’ve run into something like it before. I once asked local government employee for his opinion, but was told he might get fired if he gave it, even if it was totally unrelated to his job.
Given that it took 20 attempts to find six people willing or capable of offering their opinions, it appears people are allowing their own personal freedoms to be eroded, either by force or by simply ignoring their surroundings.
It’s tough to right a wrong, whatever the issue, when you don’t know what going on around you. It’s just my opinion, for whatever that’s worth.
Amy Satterwhite is a reporter for the Standard who can be reached at 473-2191 or by e-mail at [email protected].