Media Training 641: Advanced Studies

There is a defacto Professor of Media Training at Syracuse University, Robert Thompson (the p is silent, like in swimming). I am in awe. He does everything I was ever trained to do and so much more.

Aluminium Webbed armchairs?? My hat is off to you Professor!

The key to Thompson’s savvy is staying ahead of the game. “You hope that by the time a journalist calls you’ve already been thinking about it,” he says. The 60th anniversary of the webbed aluminum lawn chair, he offers as a nontelevision, pop-culture example, is approaching, so he read up. The chair is fascinating, he says, “because you had all this extra aluminum after the war,” and some enterprising folks thought to “take this surplus of aluminum and match it with the explosion of the suburbs, which was helped with the GI Bill.” It’s his favorite type of topic. “It’s fun to learn the contextual history of things you take for granted. The stuff is so totally a part of who you are and you fail to see the significance.”