WILLIAMSVILLE — I try not to answer the phone when I'm writing, but ever since my novel came out, I have done so.
So, when the phone rang the other morning, I picked up.
I knew it was a cold call the minute the man asked, “How are you doing today?”
“I'm working,” I say, which is a lie. If I were engrossed in my work, I wouldn't have answered the phone. Having done so, I force myself to be somewhat polite.
“So, please get to the point,” I tell him.
As soon as he mentions my book, he has my attention. Maybe this would be the call I'd dreamed of: recognition from a national outlet. I listen as he tells me he was scouting for authors to appear on a segment of a nationally televised show for women that airs for an hour every morning on both coasts.
Have I heard of the Balancing Act?
“Not the show,” I say, “but I'm familiar with the concept.”
Have I heard of the Lifetime Television Network?
This is when I'm wondering whether it's wise to confess I don't own a TV. I keep it simple.
“No,” I say.
He tells me about the show. He says he's looked at my website and can tell I have “presence” and would probably make a great guest.
I'm flattered. I start selling myself, telling him about my experience as a public speaker and my interest in finding out more about what he has to offer. In my head, I'm trying to compute the equation of five minutes on television into book sales.
Ten minutes into the conversation, the tables have turned: now he's playing coy.
“Well,” he says, “I have to bring this proposal to my team. We meet every day at four, and we'll have a decision at five.”
I'm already eager to sign on, but I listen as he tells me about the corporate sponsors of the show. A warning signal sounds in my skull .
“Are you saying that I'd somehow have to say that I use your sponsor's products?” I ask.
“Oh, no!” he assures me.
And then he launches into production costs, which run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars for the five-minute segment. This doesn't surprise me, but I'm wondering why he's telling me all this, when I hear something about a $4,900 fee.
“Who pays the $4,900?” I ask.
“It's a preproduction fee,” he says with slimy evasion. “With the high cost of production, we've had some guests not show up.”
Despite the great gaps in logic, I understand all I need: the network wants me to pay to appear on their show.
With unaccustomed grace, I say I will think about it.
* * *
After I hang up, I'm pleased that my one-woman, amateur marketing efforts have penetrated to this level of broadcasting.
But as the flattery fades, I confront this sobering fact: By charging its guests, the show is no more than a paid advertisement - except that the audience doesn't know that the “guests” are really just elite advertisers and not newsmakers at all.
Essentially, what passes for “news” - including interviews with unknown authors like me, of obscure literary novels like mine - is a hoax.
And the target audience of this show - women aged 19 to 54, women who are indeed performing that hectic balancing act of mating, mothering, and supporting their families - most probably have no idea that they're being scammed.
While it may not, in fact, be possible for humans to be truly objective, it is possible to build firewalls between financial support and editorial content.
In this young century, we've seen that firewall crumble with the advent of politically backed broadcasting companies. And while the outcome of a presidential election is unquestionably of more moment than information aimed at busy women, the principle of independent editorial content is the same.
For me, $4,900 is simply out of the question. I e-mail my regrets.
But I have to wonder: what would I have done if the fee had been $100?
I'd like to think my principles would trump my obsession with making my novel required reading from coast to coast.
This issue of media integrity makes me both proud and grateful to live in a community with an independent weekly paper whose umbrella organization, Vermont Independent Media, has at its core the mission to educate a media savvy population, so that they can recognize when information presented as news is really a scam.