Reporter Ashley

Last night flew back from Stanford to spend a few days here in Albuquerque with my family for Thanksgiving. Of course, it was massively delayed. So instead of a nice dinner with my family at one of the best New Mexican restaurants in the city, I had to settle on a slightly soggy veggi-burger from Burger King.

After jumping through all the appropriate hoops, I was finally on the plane for Albuquerque. I sat the window seat, hoping no one would take the middle seat between myself and the nice older gentleman on the aisle. But, as holiday travel would have it, that hope was not to be. Shortly before the last few passengers entered the plane, a voice comes from the aisle. "Is that seat taken?" Dammit.

I look up to see a girl about my age, with meticulously messy bleach-blond hair held up by over-sized sunglasses, pink-jeweled pierced nostril, deliberately aged and torn jeans rolled up into capris above alligator-skin stilettos and a denim jacket over layered tank tops that came down just far enough to show off an similarly pink-jeweled belly button ring and three Chinese characters on her lower back. She looks like an Ashley. Fashion Victim Ashley. I never caught her real name. "No.", I replied somewhat begrudgingly. Oh well, at least she doesn't smell bad.

After she gets her bag settled, she starts the usual post-boarding small talk.

"You going home for Thanksgiving?"

"Yeah. How about you?"

"Yeah, classes got canceled today, so I decided to fly home a day early."

Silent nod.

"What school do you go to?"

"Stanford. You?"

"ASU. God, I hate flying. My dad's an air traffic controller, so you'd think I wouldn't have a problem with this, but I just get so freaked out."

Great. Another silent nod.

Some time passes as we watch the inflight safety lecture. I could probably do that talk in my sleep by now. We start to taxi away from the gate when we suddenly stop. Two flight attendants rush up the aisle from the back. When they get to the front, the flight attendant with the speaker starts whispering something to them. She forgets the microphone is still on.

"The door just popped open, and I can't get it shut again."

"Here let me try."

Ashley does a mini flip-out.

"Oh my god! We almost took off like that. If we had gotten up there, and the door didn't close, we'd all be dead, there wouldn't be enough oxygen!"

Sigh.

She calls her boyfriend to tell him about it. She's already called him twice since sitting down. I get a mental picture of him, the 4th string quarterback frat-boy, nodding apathetically as his girlfriend tells him about her near-death experience. Then she calls two more friends to tell them about it.

Fortunately, the maintenance guys get it fixed pretty quickly and we're on our way again. Meanwhile, I've started working on some homework. Ashley leans over.

"What's your major?"

"I'm doing a Masters in Computer Science. You?"

"Broadcast Journalism."

"So you want to be a news anchor?"

"Yeah, or a reporter."

Another nod. Back to my homework.

Pretty soon we've reached the runway and we start to take off.

"I hate taking off! It's the worst part of flying."

Getting fed up, I start some small talk to distract her from her aviophobia. Just as it seems like she's forgotten that she's on an airplane, we bank hard to the right.

"Oh my god, I can't stand turning! I feel like we're totally gonna crash." She demonstrates with her hand. "We're like this right now," tilting her hand to simulate a roll angle only achievable by fighter pilots and movie crop-dusters mid-barrel roll.

Good grief. Then it hits me. The most distressing part of all of this: Broadcast Journalism. This is the type of person that is running television media these days. This is exactly why we see headlines like "First daughter's purse swiped, source said" in our national news headlines. This is why anchors even consider asking whether or not we should now be afraid of stingrays. It's the Ashleys of the world, spreading FUD about anything and everything, beyond all reason, that has driven television news to its current depths.

I know it sounds harsh, but I really hope she flunks out or changes majors. If I want to know what's going on in the world, an Ashley is the last person I want to hear it from. We don't need any more of this brand of journalism. I'd much prefer the type of reporter that is currently going extinct, the just-the-facts-ma'am kind of person. Maybe that's why I just read the news instead.

Anyways, it's not like she couldn't have a career in soap operas...

Posted November 22, 2006 - One Comment