Nicole Robinson

As a less-than-frequent TV watcher who has much disdain for “reality” TV, (and network programming in general), I would normally have not even heard of a little program on NBC called “Three Wishes.”

I’m usually not home enough to watch anything besides “Seinfeld,” “Family Guy” or “Baseball Tonight.” Given this “Three Wishes” show was 1) hosted by Amy Grant and 2) on at 9 p.m. Fridays, it’s likely I never would have seen the debacle that was the Oct. 21 episode of the program.

The premise of the show is for certain individuals to achieve a wish seemingly beyond their control. And on the first show, they featured a stutterer who longed to rid himself of his disorder.

I, and one of every 100 other people, certainly can sympathize. It’s not very much fun being in a job interview and having one sentence take 30 seconds to say.

Or getting up in front of class with a speech prepared and completely losing your audience’s attention.

Or even when you’re trying to impress that drunk chick at the party that everyone else is annoyed with (my usual 9 p.m. Friday activity).

Stuttering is not an easy thing to deal with on a 24/7 basis. In August, 2004, I purchased a SpeechEasy, a somewhat revolutionary device that looks like a hearing aid.

Explaining how it works can be complicated. In layman’s terms, I hear my voice at about a one-half second delay in my left, SpeechEasy ear.

I then try to “catch up” to that speed, which slows down my rate of speech and makes me more fluent.

Of course, it is far from perfect, and the results I have gotten have been mixed. Sometimes it works really well; sometimes it doesn’t work at all.

But the most important thing to remember about the SpeechEasy is that it’s not a cure for stuttering, but a tool. This is something that mainstream media has, for the most part, overlooked, often times intentionally.

And it’s easy to see why. My story doesn’t make for good drama, and it wouldn’t get any ratings or sell any papers or magazines.

The SpeechEasy, however, has garnered its share of media attention, some good and some bad. “Three Wishes” ranks right up with “The Oprah Winfrey Show” as the worst coverage it has received.

In “Three Wishes,” the man gets a SpeechEasy device. It is touted by the show as a cure and it turns out to be for the man, Anthony Johns Armstrong, who stuttered severely and is able to speak completely fluently after getting the SpeechEasy and speech therapy from the show.

He and his parents shared a good cry after all the pain and frustration Armstrong had been through in his life.

But, unfortunately, he is part of an extremely low (and not to mention lucky) minority of SpeechEasy users who fit into the category of a cure.

Most are about like me, with mixed results. For some, it has no effect on their speech at all. All this was made clear to the show’s producers by the National Stuttering Association before the network aired the show.

So why did NBC go ahead and air what amounted to a false advertisement? The truth just isn’t good TV, and cures work out better for ratings than simple tools do.

In a letter to NBC President Angela Bromstad, the NSA rightfully ripped apart the network, saying “the segment on stuttering was essentially a commercial for the SpeechEasy device produced by one of your sponsors and portrayed the device as the ideal solution for everyone who stutters. Your show will prompt stutterers to purchase this $5,000 device, and many of them are likely to be disappointed.”

The NSA went on to call the program “a setback” for education on stuttering. Harsh words, yet so true.

It is a setback in more ways than one, and not just for stutterers. As they say, when the media compromises the truth, everyone loses out.

I’m also going to take a wild stab and say that “Three Wishes” is not the only “reality” TV show that bends the truth a bit, as some of my friends have said.

So to reality TV, I say thanks, but no thanks. I think I’ll stick to more realistic shows like “Family Guy.”

Schaaf is a junior print journalism major and staff writer of The Spectator.