North Star Writers Group

Red carpets aside, let’s take a look at these tiresome “Of the Year” Awards. They have them for movies, for cars, for moms, for students, for computers, for bodies… you get the idea. At this point, I believe most of society is even tired of the funny spoofs of all the “Of the Year” Awards.

Why is it that American society believes these competitions to be newsworthy? The last straw for me came when I received an email asking for nominations of “Spokesperson of the Year.”

I am not making this up. I don’t think I could. According to the award’s sponsors, “The awards showcase how top spokespeople successfully navigated the crowded and often shark-filled waters of the media where agendas can be skewed, messages can be twisted and an unfavorable light can be cast upon a person or organization…”

Shark-filled waters? Is this award for shipwreck divers or corporate leaders?

The flyer goes on: “The onus is on the spokesperson to cut through the clutter and convey a quotable, spot-on message – all the while protecting credibility.”

Now, I first want to say that this criticism is coming from someone who has worked in the field of media relations for a long time. But the last time I checked, most of those “unfavorable lights” were actually the truth. Not always.

So I suggest they call the awards what they’re really for. They would have to have two. The first would recognize “Liar of the Year,” the corporate spokesperson who fooled you into believing the company’s innocence. On the flip side, you could also award “Journalist with Most Aggressive Personal Agenda of the Year,” for those cases when the media really did blow a story out of proportion. I’m sure the Liar and the Journalist would leave the ceremony the best of friends, having sat at the head table together and all.

Come on! Spokesperson of the Year?

I think I’ll go home and award “Best Jeans of the Year” to the ones that make me look the skinniest. I’ll send an announcement to the media, and I’ll host a pricey event at my house, and I’ll… wait a minute! Those jeans didn’t actually do anything to improve the world. To cure cancer. To bring the arts to underserved children. To stop war.

They aren’t Nobel Peace Prize winners and neither is your company spokesperson. Let’s reserve all awards for people like them – people who really make a difference! Let’s cancel all other “Of the Year” awards for one year.

I realize there are serious ramifications to this idea, including:

- The media would have to cover real news. Oh no! They might have to engage the public – credible people with extensive knowledge and experience – in actual debate about topics like poverty.

- The E! Channel would go out of business. Forgive me, but I can’t think of one reason that’s a bad thing. I spent an hour trying.

- Baseball players (or football, or hockey) would stop being worth an extra million just because they got an award. Trust me – there are enough Rookies of the Year who turned out to be flukes (does anyone who isn’t from Cleveland remember Joe Charboneau?) to make us realize this is unnecessary. Heck, maybe even our sporting event ticket prices could – gasp – stay the same for two years in a row!

- Rental movies at Blockbuster might have to be successful because the topic is actually intriguing to people. Studios wouldn’t be able to put any accolades in giant yellow starbursts to tempt renters. The people might have to actually decide for themselves which movie they liked the best! Definitely dangerous territory.

I guess the negative side of doing this would be that sheer boredom might kill as many people as the E! Channel would have to lay off.

The positive side is that people would have to do other stuff with their time. Not knowing what to do, they might take a class or volunteer somewhere.

Yeah, I am pretty confident that the cancellations would make 2006 the Best Year Ever.

Cindy Droog last won an award in 2003 for “Person with the Most Trips to the Emergency Room,” given by her employer. She has considered nominating herself for several fictitious awards, like Height-Challenged Person of the Year, or Schizophrenic Amazon.com Customer of the Year, both of which she’d be a serious contender for.

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