4 ~ Sunday, November 24, 1991 - North Shore News Hacks are giving writers a bad nameg OF COURSE, not everybody reads Forbes. I myself don't regularly follow the American magazine that considers itself the flagship of the world’s business publications. But then I don’t have money. Forbes doesn’t normally cover animal rights issues and certainly hasn't shown much interest in en- vironmentalism, per se, in the past, so I was slightly surprised a couple of months ago to get a message to call a journalist identi- fying herself as a writer for Forbes. Peasant though { may be (and 2 mere Canadian at that), I knew just enough about how the world is structured to know that this was a high summons indeed. Me — returning a call to Forbes magazine. Wow. I must admit 1 had a couple of old buddies | wanted to call up and say, ‘‘Hey, guess what?”’ I didn't realty think for a minute that the Forbes writer wanted my opinion of free trade or my sense abou! the options fac- ing the International Monetary Fund in the 21st century. No, it would be one more of those damned Greenpeace anni- versary pieces that every magazine writer in the Western world had been doing for the past few months. I called anyway. Sure enough, the writer ex- plained immediatcly she was ‘‘do- ing a piece on Greenpeace and could you answer a few ques- tions?’’ Sez me: ‘Gee, I'm kinda busy.’’ Sez she: ‘I read your boo This is a pitch no authoz can tesist. What? You actually read my book? Honest? Right Bob Hunter STRICTLY PERSON through? You liked it? Oh my God! Weill, shucks, not everyone recognized it as the greatest con- tribution to English literature since ... But you did. Amazing! Dumb as I may be, it was nevertheless clear from the begin- ning that this particular writer had been assigned to do a hatchet job. in the first place, all too many | magazine writers are hacks. I know. I've done enough magazine writing to be certain about this. Every once in a while, under rare circumstances, you might get to knock off an original comes- from-the-heart piece. But mostly, magazine editors and publishers know what they want, and your job, as writer, is to service them, not give voice to your muse. Reep this in mind the Next time a magazine writer calls you up and says they're doing a piece and they want to talk to you. They're not really “doing a piece,”’ they're far more likely to be doing a number. They have the ungle long before they call. The only reason they’re calling is because you might be able to provide them with the quotes they've already made up their edi- torial mind they want. In the case of the Greenpeace piece for Forbes, the writer was after blood, of course. She had to lie and pretend she was sincerely on a holy quest for truth that could be passed along to the masses to guide them on their journey. My job was to pretend that she was a sincere journalist after ob- jective truth whiie i did my ut- most to derail her scam. _ Ido this as a way of staying in shape. There is no more amusing way to spend an hour or two on the phone than by fielding dumb questions from a hotshot writer from some big-deal magazine, as long as you're doing it collect. The Forbes writer was slightly more of a mouth-breather than average, but not by much. tn the past year, I've tatked with writers from a German mag- azine called Weiner — determined to do the ultimate expose of Greenpeace -— a writer from Roll- ing Stone — determined to do the ultimate expose of CGireenpeace — a writer from Outside — deter- mined to do the ultimate expose of Greenpeace — etc. I Sike challenging the writer by telling them the truth, spelling it out really clearly, and making sure they know that { know they heard and understood. This makes it slightly harder for them to write what they were go- ing to write anyway, knowing that at least one person knows for sure they're lying. Not that it stops them. E must say the Forbes writer took my breath away with the audacity of her ties. Nota me, you understand. In all che time we spent on the phone, she couldn't get one thing out of me to substantiate her thesis, so she didn't quote me at all, except to lift a line out of context from my book, and twist it around to fit her meaning. Writers. There are moments when I understand perfectly why other people — people in the reai world, trying to do things — Joath us. Well, maybe it's got more to do with hacks than writers. Maybe hacks give writers a bad name. A point to keep in mind: Just because a magazine is big, and glossy and international doesn't mean it’s any good. I would say on the basis of my own personal dealings with the so-called writers from most of these rags — Weiner, Outside and Forbes, in particular — they’re junky beyond redemption. Drivers guilty of drinking RECENT CONVICTIONS in North Shore courts have resulted in fines and penalties, including a driving suspension, for drinking and driving related offences: WEST VANCOUVER: Peter Demetre Elchuk, 66, 21 Fourth St., Nanaimo (over .08, $300 fine, one-year driving suspen- sion); Todd Walter Allison, 27, 10 Glenmore Ave., West Van- couver (over .08, $600 fine, one-year driving suspension): John Owen Macrae, 34, 203- 1232 Harwood St., Vancouver (impaired, $600 fine, one-year driving suspension). 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