An offer I can refuse
So during one of the intermittent periods that my e-mail was working last week, I get the following from one of Rep. Sue Myrick's flunkies about a news conference today:
Believe me when I say that you will want to come and cover this press conference. If you miss this important announcement, you will regret it. Please note the start time on Monday is at 12:05pm sharp so that noon newscasts can carry the press conference live.
If not, what, you gonna fit me with a pair of cement shoes? Had there not been things going on in Raleigh I needed to tend to, nothing would have persuaded me less the head down to Charlotte than this sort of bleepy-bleep bleepbleep. (My bosses tell me I shouldn't curse on the blog.)
Not only is it sort of offensive (and maybe a little funny, but not in a good way) it violates a couple tenants of journalistic reality:
- One virtually never regrets missing a news conference....ever...even if the reason you missed the news conference is you were hit by a truck.
- Our friends at the Associated Press will give us the bullet out of the news conference. If there's something earth shaking, we can then follow up or localize the story.
Supposedly, Myrick is considering running for governor in 2008. No word yet on whether she's hired Michael Corleone onto her campaign staff.