If I ran the paper

Sometimes people ask you what you do. "I'm in media relations," I say, PRspeak for "I write the stories the university would like to see in the paper, word for word." I could also add, "I get paid to grovel and beg."

Today, one of our secretaries (er, ahem, "administrative assistants") would like the St. Paul Pioneer Press to carry news about an exhibit on Page 1, with color photos of the paintings, just because they think it'd be cool and this is Very Important to Their Marketing Efforts. She just doesn't understand why our art exhibits aren't more newsworthy. At least the neighborhood paper should take more interest, even though not a one of the artists actually lives in the neighborhood.

The exhibit will be in our "Lobby Gallery," a couple of ugly display cases in a hallway outside an auditorium. We don't have a real gallery, which some reporters view as a weak commitment to the arts. But, dang it, people should be lining up anyway.

Tomorrow, maybe they'd like the artists to be interviewed on the CBS evening news. They paint landscapes. Everybody should like landscapes. Heck, I love 'em.

So, without further adieu, if I ran the media, here are today's headlines, livebreakingnews!!! from the university:

• Fabulous free art exhibit opening Sept. 17, but wait to see it until Oct. 5 when organizers really want you there
  
  
• Theater season opens with "Eleemosynary," a play you can't even pronounce
  
  
• Don't miss "First Friday," which has nothing to do with the Catholic Church ever
  
  
• Four more rich people join the board
  
  
• University raising a bajillion million trillon dollars and why you should care so much about this
  
  
• Still no word on med school feasibility; we're too busy with lawyers at the moment