Is it or Isn't It?

Flirtatious: " I brought you this bouquet of Blackeyed Susans."

Real Mood? Retro Escapism

Prediction: Neither Ted Turner nor Rupert Murdoch will be offering free room and board at their mansions, or any of their personal residences, for victims of hurricane Katrina.

 

Things aren't always what we are absolutely sure they are. Take the yellow flowers in the picture above.  Seeing a sea of yellow out here on the prarie you just know you're looking at sunflowers. Right?

Not! What you see is the result of land lying fallow (unplowed) for a period of time.  That allows an invader species to drop in and hang out for a while.  In this case we're looking at either Blackeyed or Browneyed Susans. They pop up all the across the country when you give them a chance.

This opens the door for me to share with you what I think to be one of the more amusing "Inside TV stories" I've been associated with.

It was a Saturday night in "Metropolis." It was a strangely quiet Saturday night in the city's TV newsrooms. Oh, all the "perspective" and "fluff" pieces were in place for the long newscasts to come.

It's something I've never totally understood. On the weekends you have the smallest crews, the fewest resources, less organized news to cover, and for some reason the largest news blocks to fill. Almost all decisions come down to "bean counting." I've never been able to line up the beans to have this make any sense. But I'm not complaning. Weekend shows are the one forum left where a reporter is given enough air time to blow some perspective into a story. 

On Saturday night you sort of plan on some breaking news, especially during a warm summer evening. But here it is almost 8:30 and nothing of consequence is going on. You are "praying  to the news god."

(I'm stealing that prhase from my old friend Susan Kelly. She may have stolen it from someone else, but I teach that attribution is the one element of jounalism that may keep you out of jail.)

Maybe it's not nice but you are hoping for a shooting, a forty  car pile up, a riot at the football game, a four alarm fire. At 8:45 it seems as if the "news god" has gently answered.  It's not a four alarm, but a two alarm fire about ten miles east of the area most of the stations call home.

You can hear every station's two way radios going crazy. The news desks are scrambling to get live trucks to the scene. They are pulling reporters and photographers off the YMCA picnic stories.  The race is on and by the time everyone is in place it will be less than an hour to airtime.

The fire is in an upper floor of a very large apartment complex. In the dark it's tough to get a good view of what's going on as the fire trucks are racing to hook up to hydants. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, the fire department Public Information Officer calls the media to his side.  It's now 9:30 by the way.  News is at 10!

"Well, guys, this one is a little less than we thought. Somebody got a little careless with his barbeque and lit his lawn chair on fire. He had it out before we got here."

We all knew the rule that it's always a two alarm if it's a high rise. But we were desperate, and therefore irrationally hopeful. So now what. Everyone's lead story just went up with a smoking lawn chair.

THE NEWS GOD SPOKE: crackle, " all units in district three respond to fourth and Jackson (FICTITIOUS ADDRESS) to possible hostage situation and stabbing.

"YEE HAW."  It's only two miles from the fire. The race is on. Everyone is breaking down their set up's at record speed. We've got a breaking story, and we need to go live off the top at 10 p.m.

Even the cops and firemen are excited. They don't like to admit that, in general, we all share the same addiction to adrenalin.   By 9:45 at least all of the stations have the live trucks set up. Waiting for the SWAT team to get into place and surround the home is taking way too long.  Reporters are just going to have to get on camera and wing it.

It's now 9:55. No reporter is going to be able say much more than the obvious.

 " Well, Jerry what we have here is a potential hostage situation. The Swat team has been called out and we don't know at this time if anyone is in the house. We only know the police are responding to a 911 call from an alleged stabbing victim.  We'll get back to you just as soon as we get more information."

They've given that report a hundred times.  They don't even need to check their notes. At least we've got a lead story. THEN IT HAPPENS.

The front door opens just a crack.  An officer is crouched down on the porch and suddenly grabs the arm of whoever is opening that door. Reporters are anxious.  This is changing the script and we're not even on air yet. It's now about one minute to airtime and it happens.  The officer leans over on the porch and goes into a roll, laughing hysterically. He quickly says something to his sergeant.

Now the sergeant, while also laughing hysterically, quickly relays something to the Public Information Officer. The PIO, clearly understanding the urgency of lead story live shots, races to brief the TV crews.

With tears in his eyes, holding back a force that was telling him to guffaw, he quickly offers:

"What we have here is a woman who called 911 at 9:35 this evening reporting a stabbing. The information we operated on was not complete. We've just been informed by the woman who resides at this residence that she called 911 to report she had a STABBING PAIN. "

I think one station just bailed out and led with the YMCA picnic.  The others just did the "lightest tap dances" they'd ever done on TV.  They too, were fighting back tears.

There's a moral here.  If you're out on the prarie on a Saturday Night and see something yellow? Don't just assume it's a SUNFLOWER. And don't call the newsroom until you're sure. Reporters are not supposed to laugh on camera..

Whoops! I just heard from Jim Weis, my flora and fauna guy. He says while Blackeyed Susans are not commonly known as sunflowers, they are in a family generally referred to as sunflowers.