E-mail sent to me by Mr. Juanito T. Fuerte (March 8, 2011):
Hi, Joe,
Do you think it's really necessary for newspaper reporters to mention whether an interview is an "ambushed" interview or not? And if it is necessary, do you have another word for "ambushed" which, reporters don't seem to get tired of using over and over whenever they want to state that the interview is something spontaneous?
Also, the city newspapers have been heralding lately that "lady drivers" will soon be driving commercial buses in the Metro Manila area. (Supposedly, they're a lot more careful drivers than male drivers according to the Metro-Manila Development Authority). My question is, although the words "lady" and "woman" are synonymous to each other, is it proper to use the word "lady" which the Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary classifies as a noun, in place of the word "woman" when referring to a female driver? (I don't think the term “lady driver” is proper usage, but until I hear from the expert, I'm holding my bottom dollar bet on it.)
All the best,
Juanito T. Fuerte
My reply to Juanito:
No, I don’t think it’s proper for newspaper reporters themselves to label such interviews “ambush interviews” in their stories. It’s too sensationalistic to my taste and it makes those reporters sound like lawless elements pouncing on hapless interview respondents. Really now, what does it matter to the reader whether an interview was scheduled or done on the spur of the moment? Frankly speaking, the frequent use of the term seems to me nothing less than a form of ostentatious bragging by some reporters, and I really think that newspaper editors should routinely weed out the term from news stories during editing. As to a suitable, level-headed substitute term for “ambush interview,” I would suggest “unscheduled interview” or “chance interview.”
As to the use of the term “lady drivers” for female drivers in news and feature stories, I find it distasteful—even obnoxious. We might as well call male drivers “gentleman drivers” for equal measure from a gender-equality standpoint! Calling female drivers “woman drivers” is likewise grammatically and semantically objectionable to me; it would just lend legitimacy to the ludicrous term “man drivers”! I really look forward to the day when reporters and editors will make it journalistic routine to call female drivers “female drivers” so readers won’t have to deal with semantic drivel when reading their news and feature stories.
