Q the Eye/10.25.12

Dear LakeCountyEye,

Who leaks all the stories on this blog?

Sent via BlackBerry
Property of Sheriff's Cyber-Crime Special Undercover Unit

Dear Jay Edgar,

Hate to disappoint, but the answer is nobody. Like every political blog in the tri-county area, every story posted here by your LakeCountyEye is made up -- as in totally made up.

Haha, here's how the pros do it: Look for the Mad Libs App on your iPhone and download a story template. You're now ready to build a no-holds-barred exemplar of journalistic awesome:

A Zion man was robbed at gunpoint late Saturday at a motel. _________________, 49, of Zion NAME was not injured during the robbery at the _____________________________, PLACE said Pleasant Prairie Police Sgt. Scott Durkee. ________ told police he sells "bootleg" _____ NAME OBJECT and picked up a woman in Zion.

A good story rides on how you fill in the blanks. Your LakeCountyEye prefers the names of precinct committeemen. Along with working a precinct, expect few if any Lake County committeemen ever to be seen reading a Lake County political blog. For this story your LakeCountyEye chose at random one committeeman: Clyde J. McLemore

The story template calls for a place; your LakeCountyEye will insert: RV Motel, 98901 Sheridan Road

(For the record, this blog accepts product placements. If you want to see your product or business appearing discretely on this blog, contact your LakeCountyEye for a rate card.)

Finally, no story is ever complete without a leitmotif or macguffin, if you will. Every story has to be about something. This story will be about, oh what the heck: shoes

Now get busy and voilà ...

A Zion man was robbed at gunpoint late Saturday at a motel. Clyde J. McLemore, 49, of Zion was not injured during the robbery at the RV Motel, 98901 Sheridan Road, said Pleasant Prairie Police Sgt. Scott Durkee. McLemore told police he sells "bootleg" shoes and picked up a woman in Zion.

You are now the author of a Pulitzer quality story, ready-made for any Internet blog that will publish it.

Operatives harboring questions of ethics and journalistic integrity may rest assured. It's a open secret that Google's servers jumped the shark a few years ago, and now store every possible English sentence made up of every permutation of every word in the English language. So anything posted on the Internet using your LakeCountyEye's Mad-Lib story method is guaranteed to also come up independently in a Google search.

Don't take your LakeCountyEye's word on it. See for yourself -- search for the story just built here:

Google

According to Google this particular story actually occurred in 2009 and was reported in the News-Sun:

NEWS-SUN STAFF REPORT
PLEASANT PRAIRIE, Wis. - A Zion man was robbed at gunpoint late Saturday at a motel. Clyde J. McLemore, 49, of Zion was not injured during the robbery at the RV Motel, 98901 Sheridan Road, said Pleasant Prairie Police Sgt. Scott Durkee. McLemore told police he sells "bootleg" shoes and picked up a woman in Zion. She was trying to work out a deal with him for two pairs of shoes, and they ended up at the RV Motel, Durkee said. Once inside the motel room, two men entered the room with pistols and ordered McLemore to undress. They bound his hands with a belt and took his wallet, necklace, $410 and three pairs of the shoes
Zion man robbed at Pleasant Prairie motel

Of the many benefits of your LakeCountyEye's Mad-Lib story method, this one is clear: it is mathematically impossible to get the story wrong!

If you are an elected official, or a previously elected official, or just a private citizen under indictment, send your political questions to Q the Eye c/o ... LakeCountyEye@gMail.com