Steering the Bum Steers
Senior editor Anne Dingus, who along with Paul Burka, organizes and supervises the annual Bum Steer Awards, gives insight on the history of the long-standing tradition.
texasmonthly.com: How did Bum Steers get started? Who started it?
Anne Dingus: Bum Steers has been around since 1974. Texas Monthly was still a baby then, and published its twelfth issue in January of that year. The staff decided to do a humorous roundup of events that had taken place in Texas the previous year, 1973. The idea was a group effort, but early on Paul Burka, our regular politics writer who truly is a great wit, became the chief steerer. He's still the person whose approval we seek on everything—him and Evan Smith, our editor.
texasmonthly.com: How long have you been in charge of Bum Steers?
AD: I've worked on Bum Steers for seven or eight years now. I'm not sure I'd say I'm in charge of it, as Paul is still the grand high pooh-bah of Bum Steerdom. But I wrangle most of it through headline writing and work with the copy editors and the fact checkers to polish it and make sure it's as accurate as possible. It's like a jigsaw puzzle—all these little pieces of copy and art to fit together. Somehow, it always manages to turn out just fine.
texasmonthly.com: How has it changed since its initial inception?
AD: The feature is much bigger now. It covers twelve pages and includes a hundred items or more. Once the editorial staff got in the habit of watching out for Bum Steer candidates through the years and then saving clippings or press releases or other sources, there was always ample raw material at the end of every year. We probably start out with five hundred items, and through process of elimination reduce it to the very funniest or most outrageous items. Bum Steers has always been a bit risqué or raunchy, and it's even more so now. It's the one time a year when we can really let loose in terms of humor and taste.
texasmonthly.com: Do you look for similar criteria as you did from when you first began?
AD: Yes. Human nature doesn't change, and thus some types of Bum Steers are hardy perennials. The Stupid Crook is a classic—every year there are scores of those to choose from. A specific example is the burglar who, in the midst of ransacking a house, finds a supply of liquor and gets blitzed. There's at least one such example every year. And we don't even use those anymore—there are too many other criminal-related Bum Steers that are even better, like the one this year about the man who dressed as a priest in an attempt to fool the Border Patrol into believing he wasn't smuggling drugs. He didn't have a prayer.
texasmonthly.com: You and Paul make a point of not choosing death-related Bum Steers. What are your reasons for that?
AD: Generally, death isn't funny. Every year we use perhaps one single Bum Steer that involves a shooting or other fatality. By and large we—and, we assume, our readers—aren't amused by death. It's generally too off-putting. Similarly, we had a few dumb-criminal items this year that we cut because the men in question were child molesters. Child molesting isn't funny either—just reading the phrase seems to render the rest of the text humorless, whatever that text might be.
texasmonthly.com: How did a news story become eligible to become a Bum Steer?
AD: Any news story that reveals human foibles or bureaucratic absurdities qualifies. Everyone and anyone, from a teenager to the CEO of a major company, can be a Bum Steer. This year, we have an item about students at a Port Arthur high school starting to fight during a stop-the-violence presentation, and we also had an item about the wife of Ken Lay, former chairman of Enron, starting up a resale shop. George W. Bush is a regular in the pages of the Bum Steer Awards, and although we occasionally have indignant readers write in and complain about our lack of patriotism in daring to poke fun at the president, Bush himself enjoys the Bum Steer Awards, and has told our publisher so. As long as there's the requisite amount of absurdity, any event can qualify as a Bum Steer. But it has to occur in Texas, happen to a Texan, or relate to Texas' image nationwide. Do something silly, pointless, or self-defeating, and you can contend for inclusion in Bum Steers too.
texasmonthly.com: Do you come across them on your own or do you mostly rely on what readers send in?
AD: We amass most of them on our own—"our" being the staff of Texas Monthly, and not just the editorial staff, but our colleagues in art, advertising, marketing, production, and everyone else too. We have a huge box labeled "Bum Steers" in a nook in editorial, and by the end of the year it's almost overflowing. But we have some absolutely wonderful readers who faithfully forward to us the Bum Steers they read in their local papers. I probably get at least a hundred suggestions per year from readers who love the feature and call it their favorite article. I love Aggies—most of them have a great sense of humor, and every time there's an Aggie candidate for a Bum Steer award, I can be sure I'll hear from someone in College Station or Bryan. Clearly they have, in common with President Bush, an ability to laugh at themselves and their image. Too few of us do. We want to laugh at others, not ourselves, but the ability to see the humor in your own behavior is all too rare an ability.
texasmonthly.com: With Bum Steers, the headlines are such an integral part of the joke. How do those come about?
My Library
