Life — December 1934 — page 6: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This page contains a Crab Orchard whiskey advertisement (left) and a satirical column titled "Newsreel Martyr" by Gurney Williams (right). The advertisement humorously depicts Crab Orchard's rapid market success, showing it "swept America in one short year." Images show bartenders, liquor store owners, and consumers enthusiastically promoting the whiskey. The right-side column satirizes newsreel cameraman "Thompson," whose incompetence at covering events has become legendary. Mr. Gale catalogs Thompson's failures: he missed key moments at tennis matches, an intercollegiate swimming meet, and various other assignments. The satire culminates when Thompson attends a movie—the very medium meant to capture news—and ironically appears in the newsreel footage himself, becoming the subject rather than the documentarian. The piece mocks both journalism and personal embarrassment through this ironic role reversal.