The Michigan Daily-Saturday, June 3, 1978-Page 9
Critiques
of media
by Ephron
ByBarbaraZahs
Scribble Scribble: Notes on the Media, by Nora
Ephron, Alfred A. Knopf, $7.95, 157 pp.
"W HEN I STARTED writing a media column
a couple of years ago," Nora Ephron says,
"my primary interest was not to become a media
critic." Nonetheless, that's just what she seems to
have become. And that's fortunate, because the
media are entirely deserving of Ephron's well-
pointed barbs. Nary a branch escapes her keen eye
in Scribble Scribble, a collection of her essays on the
media from Esquire magazine. The book is
Ephron's sequel to Crazy Salad, her highly suc-
cessful anthology about women.
From checkbook journalism to television news to
People magazine, Ephron with her caustic wit at-
tempts to differentiate between what is journalism
and what is not. People evidently falls under the lat-
ter heading. "It's like a potato chip," she writes. "A
Daily Photo by JOHN KNOX
Barbara Glover, laboratory technician, sets up an RIA-that's radioimmunoassay-in the Repreductive Endocrinology lab.
! Working in a lab!
was attending a wedding that was being held at a church
about a mile from my home. We agreed to rendezvous after
the ceremony. There she was, decked out in summer chif-
fon, clutching my printout. Surely this effort was bound to
succeed. I went home without removing the protective
rubber band, jumping with anticipation. When I arrived
home, I greedily tore open the perforated sheets and began
my careful perusal. This one was working on athletes foot
and had put sex as an interest. No. Another was doing
something with muscles (I couldn't find out what). I began
feeling let down. Suddenly, I spotted my man. Interested in
contraception, reproduction-had published papers to the
effect-sounded marvelous.
I CALLED. I called again and again. Within two
days (not bad) I was talking to the doctor I was hoping to
work for. Because of my keypunching job I could not come
to Ann Arbor until the evening or on weekends. He
graciously invited me to his home on Saturday morning. I
was shocked and elated. What should I wear?
Arriving, after having only gotten somewhat lost through
the winding streets of these beautiful areas "where the
professors live", I was greeted at the door by a mild-
featured, blond-haired blue-eyed man in his forties,
casually attired (thank God) and was led to his serene
living room. The surroundings were too comfortable for me
to be anxious, so we just chatted for about an hour and a
half. The gist of the conversation boiled to the fact that he
enjoyed theater, was an M.D., and that he personally could
not help me, but he had a handful of names that might beof
assistance, with one in particular-Dr. Midgely. Feeling a
little disapointed and thinking "here we go again," I felt
that he at least had been kind and treated me well.
IT WAS MID-AUGUST. I called Dr. Midgely. "I'm sorry,
Dr. Midgely is it: conference, at a meeting, out of the lab,
out of town (choose one) at this time. Can I take a
message?" The run around went on for a week or two. I pic-
tured the poor doctor at a desk heaped with little yellow
message slips saying "10:45 a.m., Stephen Pickover called:
10:46 a.m., Stephen Pickover called; etc." I think I
soodged him so much he made it a point to be near a phone
just so he could get rid of me. By now I was depressed,.
pessimistic, and terribly timid-afraid of getting rejected
again. When he finally came to the phone, sounding
pleasant but rushed, he informed me that, while he didn't
By Stephen Pickover
need anybody, he'd ask around during his next meeting.
Click. I was crushed and defeated. Break out the self pity.
However, I called back one last time. Can't you hear him at
the meeting? "Look guys, I got this kid on my back and he
won't leave me alone. Someone take him away!" The next
day he told me there was someone who was interested. "I'll
transfer you to Dr. Karsch," (pitter patter). "Hello-yes-yes
I can come to see you-anytime convenient for you (to hell
with keypunching)-fine-I'll be there." A ray of hope.
I ENTERED the strange environment of the laboratory
feeling excited, but totally foreign, like some bacterium. In
Dr. Karsch's office were Doug, Sandy, Bob and Kathy along
with the head man himself-all staring at me through
skeptical Ph.D. eyes, asking me questions and seeming to
be listening carefully to my answers. Be honest, truthful
and sincere, I said to myself. I'm a theater major, so I can
act pretty well.
"Well... (was he hedging?) we have two choices for
you. You can work out at the farm with the sheep (oh no,
I'm allergic to wool) or you can work in the lab doing
radioimmunoassays." Since the lab work had more flexible
hours and didn't make me itch, I thought it was the best
choice. I made it-I was in the Reproductive Endocrinology
Program. Sigh.
z i IS NOW nine months later and I'm having labor
1 pains. I now know why all those famous scientists work
for twenty to thirty years before they are recognized.
Because it takes that long to get an answer that makes
some sense. The only conclusion that I've arrived at is one
of the experiments which I've been doing since September
isthat it will work the day I leave and someone else takes
over. Science has to rank up there with the most frustrating
of tasks--peeling a hard boiled egg that you need whole tlhat
won, t peel, and chunks of white come out of the shelf no
matter how careful you are. Scientists have more patience
than anyone, even Saints. And 99 per cent of the actual work
you have to do is dull, boring, sometimes even insipid. I
made 2000 labels for test tubes. I put these labels on boxes
and put test tubes inside. And so does everybody else.
See GOODNESS, Page 11
snack. Empty calories. Which would be fine
really-I like potato chips. But they make you feel
lousy afterward, too."
Once she's finished reading the magazine,
Ephron says, "I always feel that I have just spent
four days in Los Angeles. Women's Wear Daily at
least makes me feel dirty. People makes me feel I
haven't read or learned or seen anything at all."
Which is hardly surprising.
EPHRON'S CRITICISM notwithstanding, People
has proven successful on the newsstands. And that's
what she finds most disconcerting of all. People and
its supermarket counterparts which managing
editor Richard Stolley describe as focusing on the
'human element" of newsgathering (read:
gossips, represent a frightening trend. 'It seems a
shame that so much of the reporting of the so-called
human element in People is aimed at the lowest
common denominator of the alssso-called human
element, that all this coverage of humanity has to
be at the expense of the issues and.events and ideas
involved." she writes. What's more, "It seems even
sadder that there seems to be no stopping it. People
See JOURNALISM, Page 14