The first time I was
a guest expert on a TV news show the topic was the Rhetoric of War. The hiccup
was I didn't know what the word rhetoric meant.
It was going to be a
learning experience.
The invitation came early
in 1991, days after the first gulf war started. That was the war to recapture
Kuwait from Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi army.
At the time my friend
Edward Trapunski was the Executive Producer of a show called NEWS: Not Exactly
What it Seems on the Vision TV station. Another friend David Schatzky was the
usual host but Edward's wife, another friend, Ellen Roseman was the guest host
for the show I was invited to.
My only previous TV
exposure was in the late 1960s. A bunch of us from my fraternity were invited
to do a stunt on an episode of Laugh In. It had something to do with with
melting a block of ice with our body heat. We were paid with a new pool table
for the frat house. Worth the trouble.
I was not the least
bit reluctant to do the NEWS show. The idea of being on TV was on my
subconscious bucket list. Maybe someone would see it. A little notoriety.
I was one of three
invited guest commentators.
The first was a PhD
student from York University studying semiotics. Another word I didn't know. I
soon learned it was the study of the meaning of signs and words. So, for
example, the phrase Collateral Damage was in the news. It was a short form way
of saying that a lot of women and children were being killed and maimed without
actually saying that.
He thought the USA
was in the war for the oil. That was a new thought to me. He also said the
media kept saying Collateral Damage to cover up the human cost of the war. And
that was a good example of how the rhetoric, the spoken words, covered up what
was really going on and that led to the war being more popular than it should
have been.
The second guest was
a University of Toronto professor of Aristotelian thought. I think his
role was to comment on the rhetoric of war with a nod to Aristotle's thinking
about ethics. I never knew what this man was talking about or maybe I just
didn't understand.
Edward invited me on
the show because he thought my advertising background, with its heavy reliance
on words, would deliver an important perspective. A nice compliment.
At the time I was
naive politically. I was in favour of the war. I saw it simply as good vs. evil
just as CNN portrayed it.
I had about a week to
prepare for the show. The web was still in its infancy then so I went to the
library to do my research. First I did a dictionary search to find out what
rhetoric meant. That was only slightly helpful. I got a rough idea but needed to
dig deeper to develop opinions. My advertising background was useless.
I asked the librarian
to help me find some books which got me part of the way there. I learned
rhetoric was very complicated as people could use words like statistics, that
is, to shape the facts any way they preferred.
I found this quote
which helped me develop a point of view I could bring to the show.
"It's good to
keep wide-open ears and listen to what everybody else has to say, but when you
come to make a decision, you have to weigh all of what you've heard on its own,
and place it where it belongs, and come to a decision for yourself; you"ll
never regret it. But if you form the habit of taking what someone else says
about a thing without checking it out for yourself, you"ll find that other
people will have you hating your friends and loving your enemies"
Think that sounds
wise? Malcom X said that in an advice for children book.
The show went off
pretty well. I was totally surprised by the PhD student. I didn't know anyone
who was against the war and the idea that the USA was involved to steal oil was
beyond me. The U of T professor said nothing memorable.
I acquitted myself
reasonably well. The highlight, of course, was quoting Malcolm X on national
tv. One client let me know he saw the show. A little notoriety.