An Academy Award-Winning Movie, Stuttering and Me

[Geee]

Human Events:



Because "The King's Speech," a movie about King George's effort to overcome stuttering, won the Oscar for best picture, reporters have been interviewing me about my stuttering.

Some ask why they don't hear me stutter on TV. Others wonder why a stutterer is on TV in the first place. Here's my explanation. Since I was a child, my stuttering has come and gone. Sometimes I was sure the problem had disappeared -- then it would return with such a vengeance I'd fear saying anything. I'd stay silent in class. I avoided parties. When I was old enough to date, sometimes I'd telephone a girl and try to speak, but nothing would come out. I'd just hang up. Now, because of caller ID, stutterers can't do that.

I never planned on a career in TV. After graduating from Princeton, I was accepted by the University of Chicago's graduate school in hospital management. But I wasn't eager to go to grad school. I hated school. Princeton bored me. I thought that if I took a real job, that would make me appreciate school. I went to every job interview I could get and took the offer that gave me the longest free flight: researcher at KGW-TV in Portland, Ore.

Work turned out to be better than school! And instead of paying tuition, my employer paid me! So I kept working at the TV station.

[Chickadee]

Awesome!

[pollyannaish]

<--------- Official Stossel groupie.

 

This just makes me admire him more. He is one of the few reporters on TV that asks the right questions instead of the obvious ones.