Flirtatious: Gone Blank
Real Mood? Reflective
Prediction: Somebody did get home video, and it will surface for a price.
One of the fruits of retiring from the media is not having to stay glued to the TV set, the Two-Way radio, The Pager, The Cell Phone, The Fax, The Competition Coverage and whatever else they've added in the past three and a half years. There is some irony there. When most of us got into this business, HAVE TO was GOT TO.
I was working in Liberal, Kansas where there was more action than you might imagine. And I never missed a beat of it. I had a police radio I kept by my bed, instead of one that would play music. I occasionally turned it down at night, but never off.
My photographer friend Coby Howell never transitioned away from that passion. He has so many radios in his news car there is barely enough space left for the camera and one skinny reporter. Every outlet needs a Coby Howell. When his two way crackles you know you've got news.
Everybody in this market for any period of time got to know Ray Pitt. Ray is a former Police Officer who freelanced as a traffic reporter and news tipster. I don't know if he is still around, but this story will stay around for ever.
Ray has a pretty good sized family and it took a while to save enough money to take them all to Disneyland together. So he gets them all to the Disney parking lot. They all jump out and head to the gates where their dream vacation is about to commence.
Well, not everybody got out. Ray, it's told, stayed right where he was to live out HIS dream. He spent the entire day listening to Los Angeles area police scanners.
This is kind of a long introduction into what I want to talk about today. I think I'm stalling.
As a "Reporter Emeritus" ( in most circles) I'm getting asked a lot about what I think of the coverage of the Gulf Coast Catastrophe. I've become really comfortable being neither an apologist nor a critic of the media. And I'm going to walk a tightrope hoping to keep that posture. In all honesty most of you have seen and heard and read more of the coverage than me. But maybe I can offer some insight into your making sense of what you're seeing. Some questions that have come my way:
"Why is it when the Hurricane hit all we saw was reporters standing in front of the camera? Why wasn't there any video?"
Even notbeing there I can tell you it's because they couldn't get it. As you may have surmised from the way we got into this, journalists are a competitive lot. Number one, they all want to be first. Most of them will toss all safety to the wind to be "Numero Uno." That's why it was no challenge filling the embedded reporter slots in Iraq.
In addition to being first, there are photographers driven to catch the action, the TV moment. They want to be there to show the drama of the roof tiles peeling off in high winds. They want to catch the tree actually falling on top of the Mercedes. They want that shot and the natural sound of the pleasure craft banging on the side of the pier.
If we didn't see those pictures I'm confident it was because they couldn't get them. While they are subject to the same police orders handed down at a disaster as the general public, there are always a number among us who sneak around a perimiter, and find a back way in to get the story, get the picture no one else has, be first.
And there are journalists who just want to dramatically document what's going on. They are looking for the video that gives perspective to the crisis. They are looking for well composed video and stories of suffering and survival. Typically those are pictures and stories that will surface days, weeks, months, maybe even a year after the event. They often become the basis of stories entered into contests, including the Emmies. One of the reasons you don't see those pictures early on is all of the media's resources are committed to just staying on top of what's happening officially, at the moment.
"Why aren't we seeing more home video like we saw during the Tsunami?"
Don't know but I've got some guesses. It was sunny and bright out when the Tsunami hit. There was limitless visibility. I've not been in a hurricane, but I've been around a ton of blizzards and tornado producing storms. If you don't have a camera tied down to a tripod hiding behind a windbreak, you're not going to get any video or pictures worth showing to anybody.
Also if you've visited the Gulf Coast this time of year you likely have a comment on the humidity you'd like to share. Even without the storm you may have noticed little foggy smudges forming on your lens, slowly destroying the image in front of you. That much moisture is not good for picture takin'.
"Why don't they wait until they get final official statistics before announcing them?"
I'll answer that question with a question. Would you (viewer, listener, reader) be willing to to wait? The research, for what its worth, says you are not.
To get this back on balance here's some questions I can't fully answer.
"Why do they just keep showing the same pictures over and over. Is that all they've got."
The unfortunate truth is it's easier. If they can loop some dramatic pictures together, they can just run them under everbody's reports like background music. They don't have to put a tape editor to work who is more useful elsewhere. I don't like it because it gives the impression it's happening now. But that's easy for me to say. I'm not a producer under fire.
"Why do they put the camera right in somebody's face and keep the camera rolling until they break down sobbing.?"
The quick answer is the research once again tells us that's what YOU want. I'm not totally on board with that one. Yes you want the tender, the joyous, the fearful moment captured. But I think you want the camera to pull away sooner. Most of the people I worked with over the years honored that last inch of privacy. But you as an audience control the answer to the question. If you are opting for the station that shows the body, you're sooner or later going to get the body on all the stations.
"Why do they always send their anchors to be in the middle of the big story?"
I'm not sure. The quick answer is it gives them presence, to show that he or she is right on top of it. But to be honest it's one of my major pet peeves as a journalist. From an insider's point of view it pissed me off because they were jumping in on a story they hadn't worked at all. They'd just been briefed and then you had to stop every important journalistic function you were in the middle of, and pamper them. And some, certainly not all, have no experience in the field and become incredibly high maintenance. I thought it was awful to take a sports anchor, Robin Roberts, on camera just after she found out her family was safe in Gulf Port.
She nearly breaks down introducing someone elses poignant package, and when she comes back on camera, Charlie or Diane set her up by asking about her family. Well of course she's going to fall apart. The people you're looking to for perspective should not, cannot fall apart.
I wasn't there but I've heard this story from a number of sources. When the Loma Prieta earthquake hit the bay area in 1989 it was a nightmare to cover. With the Bay bridge access gone, it was a mad scramble to get to the scene. First of all, the only place you could fly into was Los Angeles and drive at least four hours north to the scene. (that's a five hour drive even ten miles over the speed limit...but if you want to be number one?)
You'll see this all the time at a major news event. All the Major TV stations in the country show up to give their personal touch. And they are all fighting for satellite time and satellite trucks. In this case understand this is taking place in the middle of a crisis where people have been crushed to death, where family members are milling around hoping for a miracle.
The part of Oakland where the collapse took place sits in poverty. People living on the edge anyway are standing around in shock.
Amid all of this, one of the trucks announces a good portion of it's time has just been purchased by one of the networks. Everyone else will have to get in line. Just as he finishes his announcement,a stretch limousine pulls up to the truck, and with a big smile on his face, out steps that Network's Main Anchor to give everybody the scoop.
Since I wasn't there, and I'm sure there is information I don't have, I'll not name the network or the anchor. I just hope that if it's all true, that network didn't fare well in the Bay Area that year.
I'm done for now. I noticed throughout this entry I kept switching back and forth putting myself in the We or They category. Normally I'd go back and edit that to make it consistent? But I think there may have been a reason that happened. I'll take the grammarian hits.
We'll do lighter fare next time.
PostScript. There were some anchors I loved having at the scene. They were reporters first, and worried about their hair second.
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