Article archive / November 1, 2014
Originally published: . Volume 5, No. 15. Source pages: 2.
After declining all requests to be interviewed, the psychology board says it is going to “create policies and procedures for responses to media requests.” They seem to mean business because they’ve assigned Dr. Joe Comaty and Dr. Marc Zimmermann to the job.
When the Times staff heard this, we immediately said to one another, “We can help!”
It wasn’t easy however. We brained-stormed for hours! We scoured all the great minds who have written on the topic; from the classical Greek and Roman philosophers, all the way to Locke, Kant, and Adam Smith. We wracked our brains for the most valuable, practical and profound ideas we could think of that should be included. We studied Marx, Darwin, Freud, Levin, Trivers, the Bible, Constitutional scholars, APA, APS, and the Boy Scouts of America. We were all over the map.
We worked for days and days and days, all on a volunteer basis mind you, and we’ve produced a manual that we think can save the board huge time and effort. We’re pretty sure that this guide can be used by not only the psychology board but all sorts of government bodies––boards, commissions, advisory committees, individual officials and agencies that appear also to be struggling with similar issues, like the IRS.
We’re honored to provide this professional, comprehensive work, titled Procedure Manual for Dealing with the Media, absolutely free to the psychology board.
For only $199.99 we can include 499 pages of introductory materials, with current government regulations, grant requests, background research, self- congratulatory statements and acknowledgements where we thank ourselves, our friends, our business associates and all of our family members and distant relatives. We even provided a course outline for 20 hours of continuing education with the purchase of the manual.
But the truly amazing thing is that the instructional section is only one page! Key decisions are outlined in a flow chart and the main instruction is wrapped up in wording that most, or at least many, will find readily interpretable––Answer the question and tell the truth. Problem solved.
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