From pericles@astro.ocis.temple.edu Sun Apr 11 11:33:04 1999 Received: from mxu1.u.washington.edu (mxu1.u.washington.edu [140.142.32.8]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW99.02/8.9.3+UW99.01) with ESMTP id LAA11846 for ; Sun, 11 Apr 1999 11:33:03 -0700 Received: from tempest.ocis.temple.edu (pericles@tempest.ocis.temple.edu [155.247.166.120]) by mxu1.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW99.02/8.9.3+UW99.01) with ESMTP id LAA23098 for ; Sun, 11 Apr 1999 11:33:02 -0700 Received: from localhost (pericles@localhost) by tempest.ocis.temple.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id OAA14967 for ; Sun, 11 Apr 1999 14:32:58 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 11 Apr 1999 14:32:57 -0400 (EDT) From: "Daniel P. Tompkins" X-Sender: pericles@tempest.ocis.temple.edu To: Classics List Subject: Re: Rhetoric in high places In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I don't have all the answers to Elias' question. Kathleen Hall Jameson of Penn's Annenburg School has a franchise on lots of radio/tv commentator positions, partly because she has written about them often. So, writing about stuff like this--in op-ed pieces etc.--is one way to get a toehold. Training in how to handle the media is another essential. Jameson gets the calls because she knows what they want, which is not endless theorizing without a punch line. We get press calls all the time, because my wife is a criminologist. Once she was interviewed by Fox News on the declining crime rates and gave four causes; turning on the TV that night, she found herself giving the one true cause of declining crime. The media can be very peremptory. Another time she and all other criminologists were off at the November professional meetings so I took the call: a reporter seeking quotes concerning a NJ teen who'd murdered her newborn. I explained; the reporter, at the end of his teather, blew up: 'I have an infanticide, and all the experts are off at their convention!' He was not amused by comments on Medea et al. It was very nice, then, to turn on the the Today Show (I think) last Monday in a hotel in DC and find Loyola (Chicago)'s Brian Lavelle featured in a bit on the 'real' year 2000. So, Elias does well to mention the outreach comm. A list of classicists prepared to address particular special areas, with phone and e-mail numbers, will help; esp. if this list gets a rep. for succinct and useful comments. The press are always in a hurry, and cherish info like this. Dan Tompkins .