My Deepest Apologies to the ABC 4 Journalist I Lied To

Dear ABC4 Salt Lake News Caster Woman who I forgot the name of,

I apologize for lying to you this afternoon. When I went out to the Gateway mall after a shockingly long ordeal at the bank, it was to pick up a birthday gift for a friend. She wanted a new journal, and by jove, I was going to get one for her.* So when you approached me and asked if I would talk to you about seasonal allergies, I was thrown a little off guard. Usually when someone I don't know approaches me with an unusual proposition I've become remarkably good at pretending I don't speak English.

When you asked if I would be okay with it, I told you I wasn't comfortable with the interview and that I was camera shy. I briefly entertained the notion of telling you that I didn't want some random creeper who I'd pretended to only speak German with to go "I saw you on ABC4! I know you speak English!" This was a lie. Really, I was insulted by what you (as in ABC "you," not you personally) considered news.

See, I'm a Journalism student myself. I understand what constitutes newsworthiness. I understand that if something is annual, it might be newsworthy - like Christmas or Burning Man. I also understand that if it's  annual and something nobody cares about like the sun rising in the east and setting in the west... it's not news!


If the sun were to suddenly rise in the west and set in the east one day, that would be news. If people at Burning Man were to act as if they had a sense of dignity and/or social skills, that would be news. If Christmas were to inexplicably fall on the 28th of December, that would be news.


Seasonal allergies are just not news. They do not fall into the standards of newsworthiness because nobody wants to think about them. They are not something I want to talk about, nor are they a subject I want to watch on the news.

So once again, I apologize. I hope I didn't make your job too much harder. Human interest is important, but I just didn't want that human interest to be me.

*It should be noted that I hightailed it out of there so fast I never did get my friend's birthday gift. I felt guilty and didn't want to accidentally run into her again. In retrospect, she probably wouldn't have cared either way.