January 16, 2007

‘Armed & Famous,’ journalism legend spark Muncie memories

From the big screen to student press rights, Muncie has been in the national news and on my mind quite a bit since last week.

Unless you’ve been living without media access for the past week, it’s probably a guarantee you’ve at least heard about — and probably watched — the new celebrity cop show that first aired on CBS Wednesday: “Armed & Famous.” (The premiere episode nearly topped the ratings in its 8 p.m. time slot, as more than 5.8 million homes with TVs tuned in, according to www.zap2it.com).

I’ve admitted before in this column that I’m not a fan of reality TV, but this show that features celebrities Erik Estrada, La Toya Jackson, Jason “Wee Man” Acuña, Jack Osbourne and Trish Stratus as rookie cops on the Muncie police force (who are armed with guns) captured my interest enough to watch.

I think the main reason I found myself flipping to CBS was solely based on the fact that I lived in Muncie for nearly four years when I attended Ball State through December 2003. The uniqueness lured me in.

Another reason: partial disbelief that five celebrities-turned-reserve-officers would actually be carrying loaded weapons arresting people ... even if they had under gone “intense” police training and took part in a swearing-in ceremony.

But I was also curious how the producers would portray our close east central Indiana neighbor, a city of about 67,000 people that I always considered big enough to see its fair share of crime and major happenings, but small enough to maintain that Midwest flavor.

After two episodes, I found the show entertaining and didn’t think Muncie came off looking too bad ... for the most part. But, I’m still not a fan of reality TV.

We do see the celebrities working with real-life police officials dealing with real-life problems, responding to problem after problem and trying to help those in need. It further shows the complexity and dangers involved in police work, but at the same time, it portrays the human side of the job, such as when celebrity cop Stratus comforts a family that lost its home in a fire.

And there were a few laughs to see how people reacted (even those being arrested) when they saw Estrada, aka Ponch, the former “CHiPs” star.

But there was one scene we hope viewers nationwide didn’t base their sole opinion on about how people in Muncie act when they see celebrities. As Estrada and a Muncie police officer sat in their police car doing paperwork, a woman who appeared to be in her 50s or older walks up to the car to ask for an autograph. Instead of asking him to sign a picture, she pulls out a prosthetic boob from her purple sweatshirt.

That’s reality TV, I guess.

My curiosity about the show led me to Ball State’s college newspaper the next day, as I was curious how The Daily News was covering the reality program.

As the Web site appeared on my laptop, the reality show disappeared from my thoughts as I saw a black and white picture of a familiar face.

Louis E. Ingelhart 1920-2007.

For many readers, that name might not mean much, but to Ball State journalism students and alumni, high school and college journalists and First Amendment advocates across the country, he was a legend.

Ingelhart, or Louie as many called him, was a professor emeritus at Ball State and a respected expert on the First Amendment. He presided over the creation of Ball State’s journalism department and was its first chairman. He even helped to form the Student Press Law Center in the early 1980s. His accomplishments could go on for inches.

I was born two decades too late and wasn’t at Ball State for most of Ingelhart’s career. Unfortunately, I never had the chance to meet him personally, but I was fascinated as a freshman when I learned all he had done — and was still doing — to stand up for high school and college students and their First Amendment rights.

You might say he was the Jim Barbieri of Ball State journalism.

I would often see him walking round the journalism department, cane in hand, but I was too timid as a freshman to do more than say hello as I passed him.

His passion and dedication inspired me as a young journalism student; I still wish I would have had the opportunity to speak with him about the First Amendment, student journalism, his life experiences or just anything. He loved to talk, everyone said.

Muncie may be on the big screen and in the news for the short term with the celebrity cop show, but the true, long-term reality is that student First Amendment rights and scholastic journalism are better off today because of Louie.

We don’t need a TV program to show that. We have Louie’s work, words and wisdom; that’s reality.

I’m often reminded of one of his quotes that I saw often during my Ball State days.

“The greatest and perhaps only necessities of humanity are freedom of thought and freedom of expression — all else is but joy or pain.”

--JUSTIN PEEPER

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