As I Type It: I Now Have a Hammer

Many of you write in frequently to ask why we in the broadcasting industry call it “the broadcasting industry.”  Since there is no single answer to this question, I will respond with a lie.  Remember, this isn’t broadcasting–it’s typing, and for people like me who strive endlessly to transmit truthful and utterances across vast empty space, a little bit of off-duty falsity can be therapeutic.

We broadcasters call it “the broadcasting industry” precisely because we don’t actually make things.  Though broadcasting is indeed what we do, the inclusion of the word “industry” is there to imply a sense of collective enterprise, like steel-making or some other great endeavor.  That kind of thing is accomplished today in other very far away countries that have nothing what so ever to do with broadcasting.

In fact, no entity can truly call itself an industry unless it has a hammer.  Any man who wields a hammer has physically embraced the very act of production. To create a somewhat pathetic birdhouse or set a mighty plank firmly in place, using any tool other than a hammer would be an insult to the intelligence of mankind.

Today I bought myself a hammer and will keep it nearby in its trusty hammer sheath to show to anyone who wants me to talk knowledgeably about a birdhouse I never made.