8:58 pm
Our handfasting in the paper?
I got home today and I had a message on the answering machine, from Virginia de Leon, a reporter from the Spokesman - I like her stuff, she does a lot of stories about diversity. She wants to come to Michael and my handfasting with a photographer and do a story on it!
I’m in shock.
We are meeting with her next week (I want to meet her first before I go through with this) but initial answer is a resounding yes. I hope I can do the local Pagan community proud.
I still need time for it to sink in though, I have till Tuesday’s meeting to mull it all over.
June 14th, 2007 at 8:04 am
Wow! That is so great! I think you should do it, if you and Michael are both comfortable with it.
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June 14th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
Amazing and a big WOW… another celebrity! …and you are personally making the clothing for you and Michael. What an opportunity to display you giftings. Keep us updated.
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June 14th, 2007 at 3:27 pm
If you do decide to do it, I want a copy of the newspaper!
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June 15th, 2007 at 3:18 am
Yeah, try to get your website mentioned and it might lead to some more business; especially since if they take some pictures all your crafts, outfits, etc will show up!
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June 18th, 2007 at 7:05 am
That was one of the first thoughts I had, that this would be an awesome business opportunity if can get what I do for a living mentioned.
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June 16th, 2007 at 10:37 am
Wow. That must have been quite a surprise to come home to that message. It will be nice to see a story on Paganism that is something other than the usually Halloween story.
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June 16th, 2007 at 11:57 am
Reading your bogs regularly. You are a special grandaughter. Love you muchly.
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June 18th, 2007 at 7:01 am
Love you too Nana.
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June 17th, 2007 at 11:35 am
Well, guess I’ll be the cautionary voice here. It is good you’re meeting
with the reporter ahead of time but in the end she’ll portray the event
the way she wants and you’ll have no control over it. Even if she wanted
too she may not be in a position to be really positive about it after
all the paper is not going to stick their necks out to go against public
opinion of pagans and say ‘what a wonderful thing this is and we should
all embrace it’. At best you’ll get a ‘this is interesting, different, maybe
beautiful, and we should think about it’ and at worse you’ll get
‘what a weird ceremony and where do these people come off?’.
The latter may be what readers conclude no matter how the story
is written. The points I’m trying to make are 1. you have no control and 2. a bad
story could taint the whole experience for you. Once it is done you
can’t take it back. So, give it serious, serious thought before
throwing yourself at the mercies of the press.
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June 18th, 2007 at 7:01 am
If anything my husband and I are overly careful by nature and tend to think some things to death
so we have thought a lot about this and are meeting with the reporter before hand to decide. And the story will not be printed before our handfasting, so I am not worried about any… unwanted guests on the day.
Even if the article is spun badly (which is very very unlikely, I am pretty good at judging people) it will still give me future opportunities to talk to people. Sure there might be a couple hate mails or door knockers, but I am use to dealing with that.
But tomorrow will tell, since we are meeting her then — thank you for being the cautionary voice though.
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June 18th, 2007 at 3:29 am
RE: Jett’s comments
The press can always put an ugly spin on things; but this is the Spokesman, not the New York Times. I think it will be a fluff piece, but it will still be nice to be in the paper and have something cool to remember your wedding by.
You *do* have control, just make sure you talk with the reporter beforehand about the piece she is going to write and ask that she not make it into a soapbox article. (Which, after reading some of her previous articles, I sincerely doubt she would. She would alienate herself from any other religious groups/sects and writing about Christianity all the time would be pretty boring)
Don’t get paranoid about it.
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June 18th, 2007 at 6:54 am
I can see Jett’s viewpoint though, the Spokesman is very good at slamming people without reason when they want though, our mayor was accused (without any proof) of child molestation because the paper did not like him, and he was petitioned out of office.
However I really doubt something even remotely like that will happen to me, maybe a couple pamphets from a very few the papers’ readers on my door telling me to convert, maybe a phone call, but nothing dangerous. Spokane, though people here are mostly conservative, like to keep to themselves.
Meeting the report on Tuesday afternoon before making our final choice.
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June 20th, 2007 at 7:18 am
[...] met with the reporter, Virginia de Leon, (the one who wants to do the story about the handfasting for the local paper) yesterday afternoon and had a really wonderful open talk. I feel that she will [...]
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