Mastercard called The Daily Cardinal the other day offering me an exclusive interview with Hoobastank. By \me,"" of course, I mean ""me and approximately 700 college newspapers across the country."" By ""exclusive interview,"" I mean ""fight a bunch of other reporters to ask questions in a conference call."" I'm thinking of turning them down.
Conference calls, essentially, are the consolation prize of journalism, a way of making 50 newspapers feel like they're getting a big interview without doing more than 15 minutes of work. They're feeding frenzies without any meat: it's considered unethical to quote the answer to someone else's question, and chances are you won't be getting to ask too many questions yourself. You can't even talk
without asking permission first. Journalists press pound to signal they want to ask a question, and the moderator calls on same guy from the Ohio State Lantern over and over again.
Usually conference calls are reserved for blue chip stars, people out of the reach of lowly college papers who aren't yet elite enough to ignore us entirely. Matthew Perry uses conference calls, Angelina Jolie does too. Hoobastank apparently needs the publicity too. No one applies for internships with middling angsty rockstars #396.
Thursday, college papers around the country will run a quote or two from Hoobastank, because Hoobastank equals readership. But no one will ask the only important question. Call a band to task and no one will ever invite you to the next conference call. And no one wants to miss a Billy Bob Thornton phoner.
Hoobastank are a flash in the pan at best, a leech in their genre riding the popularity of Incubus. Hoobastank are Candlebox. They're Meredith Brooks. Why does it seem like a good idea to invite 16 interns to collaborate on your next video? Why hasten the process of bringing your band down? It must be the question on all the reporters' minds. ""Why are you allowing yourself to be a gimmick? Why willfully make yourself into a bunch of puppets?""
Something rubs me the wrong way about that, not that the band was being used, but that we were. There is a carrot dangling in front of us, and no one can bite at it.
And I guess something rubbed me the wrong way about the Mastercard guy telling me what stories we were going to run.
""We were thinking that you would run something in your announcements page, and then a news story, and then a more featuresy interview.""
Yikes. If we don't have an announcements page, do we get to turn them down?
This paper will not be participating in the conference call, although it's very tempting. Late at night I dream about using my one Hoobastank question to ask them about their influences for . Or blatantly mispronounce their name each time. Or ask them questions which no one can answer without offending someone. ""So what's your least favorite ethnicity?""
""How do you feel about partial birth abortion?
What can you ask a band who won't be around this time next year? Do we ask if their day jobs will take them back? We're always looking for new writers- Hoobastank's interview could easily double as their job interview for a spot here.
There is a fine art to the empty interview. It takes skill to write a bunch of paragraphs with very little substance. There are only so many answers to ""What are your influences"" before all the band names slur together. There are only so many ways to be nonchalant. Do you like all your newfound fame? Yep! Are you keeping it real? All the time! Aren't the girls great? You betchya!
For some reason it's more interesting when the Strokes say it than when Hoobastank says it.
But Hoobastank equals readers. They can say anything, anything at all and someone will be there to read it. Especially when it's disparaging.
Joe is a fourth year student. His column runs every Wednesday.
He can be reached at jhuchill@wisc.edu. E-mail him. He'll take you out for a malt or something.
