Awaiting the Giant Scissors...

WFMY News shooter Chris Keimig strikes a pose familiar to anyone who's done time behind the lens: the Hurry Up and Wait. This time it happened alongside South Elm Street, where forward-thinking community leaders cut the ribbon on a new wi-fi hot spot - but not before making the press wait thirty minutes longer than originally announced. That may not sound like very long to you, but when you got a new deadline every ninety minutes, a half hour of downtime can mean the difference between highly finessed editing and meatball surgery. But this South Dakota native took it all in stride - whistling a tune in the cool Spring breeze as I paced about and fidgeted with my digital camera. No one likes a show-off, Chris...

The Social Fabric of Firefighting

Highway 109 was backed-up for miles and despite the shiny logos on my door, no one was getting out of my way. So I did what any good photog does when presented with such an impasse: I activated the flashers and pulled over onto the shoulder of the road. There I accelerated in fits and starts, working my way past stalled traffic and hoping the tall grass I was traversing wasn’t hiding any broken glass or unseen ditches. Luckily it didn’t and I managed to get to the head of the pack with only a few dirty looks from the stagnant travelers. ’Sorry’, I thought as I rumbled past, but those flashing lights in the distance are calling my name. More importantly, my bosses were hovering over laminated maps back at the shop, wondering why Stewart wasn’t at the house fire yet. Before long, I was. Pulling in behind a farm truck with red lights in the dash, I threw Unit 4 into park, grabbed my gear and made a trek I’ve made a thousand times before. As I stepped over hoses and dodged distracted firemen, the smell of freshly cut grass and burning furnishings transported me back to the early 80’s.

I grew up in a rural community that revolved a single church and a nearby fire department. Whenever the emergency whistle blew (and it did often), my older brother and I would drop everything and run as fast as we could for the church softball field next door. Once we scaled the outfield fence, we’d dig out our special key and officially unlock Saulston’s Volunteer Fire Department. By the time the bay doors had risen to reveal a few dilapidated fire engines, someone older would arrive - a farmer, a mechanic or any one of the dozens of no-nonsense men who fancied themselves first responders. If we were lucky, my brother and I could stow-away on one of the trucks as church leaders in turn-out gear cranked their antiquated keys. What followed was a screaming blast of adrenaline, a mad dash across Saulston proper that ended in smoke, crumpled automobiles and always, intrigue. For a couple of outcast kids doin’ time in the sticks, it was as close to adventure as we ever got.

But that’s how it was when I was young. A bastion of good ole boys and good intentions, the volunteer fire department was as much about socializing as it was saving lives. Whenever the whistle blew, an impromptu town square formed around the conflagration in question. Hoses were pulled, water was summoned and grown men gossiped under the sweat of their helmets as they matter-of-factly extinguished the blaze. I was just a kid of course, scampering around the edges of these gruff assemblies with my buddies and always, always watching. I wasn’t alone. Everyone too old, young or (then too) female to join the fire-fighting force would amble up, loiter and chat - giving the emergency at hand the air of a church picnic. Those endless roadside scenarios held me enraptured for years. Eventually, I graduated from voyeur to participant. Following in the fotsteps of my older brother, who was embarking on a lifetime of emergency response, I joined the department as a junior firefighter of sorts. It was all my 15 year old buddies and I could do to 'can the grab-ass' and listen to our elders as they indocrinated us into the world of blaze containment. I may not have been the greatest firefighter in the world, but I got one hell of a kick suiting up.

As I leaned on my tripod yesterday and watched Wallburg's Bravest roll up their hoses and sweat under their protective clothing, I realized little had changed in rural North Carolina. Blazes still break out in unwanted places, taciturn men still race to the scene and the community at large still turns out to watch. In my broef time along Highway 109, I saw pretty girls hanging out of pick-up truck windows, neighbors with dirt under their fingernails comforting the distraught and young boys and girls in oversized firecoats staring mesmerized into the sooty abyss. One fireman with a walrus moustache approached my camera, curious to know what the guy with the fancy-cam and the loud shirt was up to. We chatted for a moment, talked about scanners and weather bunnies and kids in the department. When a helmeted figure on the horizon beckoned him, my new found friend walked away with a weariness that can only be earned. I stayed and stared at the gutted structure, wondering how much longer I'll surf on the edge of inferno.

Quite a while, I'm guessing....

Victims in the Periphery

The Duke rape case is a salacious cocktail of cable news excess and I for one want no part of it. Already the 24 hour news beast has swallowed this dirty morsel whole, churning out a fetid buffet of steamy details for the Great Unwashed to feast on. And to think it's just an hour or so down the road. Luckily I've avoided that particular bivouac thus far; the soft news outfit I find myself embedded in keeps me off the front lines for the most part. Others who share my logo haven't been so lucky. As a media event, the electronic nucleus swirling around Durham is of proportions unthinkable a dozen years ago. Now, however the slightest combination of sex, lies and race can spark a sat truck summit faster than you can say "Camp O.J."

If you can't tell, these vulture fests ain't my scene. I'm all for extended team smotherage, but when sordid accusations are the coin of the realm, I tend to wanna go wash my hands. Blame it on my early years. I was barely competent behind a camera when I found myself sitting ringside at a hideous display of accusation, hysteria and questionable evidence. Covering the Little Rascals Day Care trials were surreal experiences for the grizzliest of TV vets. To a young news punk like myself, it was a lid-blowing lesson in handcuff charisma, depraved testimony and bent justice. I've been chasing harmless fluff ever since, even though I still get sucked into the hard news skeev-a-thon more often than I wish. In fact, I wouldn't even be talking to you about this broadcast blight were it not for something I want you to read.

David Hoggard, a local blogger and world-class raconteur, found himself in the Durham County Courthouse and files a bracing report of electronic interlopers gone askew:

"About fifteen minutes into my stay, a rustle of activity began as videographers started shouldering their cameras and reporters pulled out their stenopads. They all started heading for the elevators inside the courthouse, so I did what any self respecting blogger would do...I followed them."

What he witnessed on the other side of that elevator ride had little to do with strippers or lacrosse, but it stayed with him all day until he forged a first-person narrative worthy of its own documentary. In it, he tells of a mother and daughter seeking justice against an abusive father, while the chattering classes loitered and scratched.

"The mother told of the many years of desparation and suspicion leading up to the day when she finally asked one of her daughters if what she suspected was true. She recounted, in great detail, all of the verbal and physical abuse that she endured until she finally mustered the nerve to call the police. Then the daughter spoke as my heart broke into little pieces."

Go read the whole incredible thing, then do me a favor: The next time you see the cable TV ghouls picking apart the Duke rape case carcass, turn off the blasted set and go hang out with your kids. The world, will be a better place.

Destination Unknown

Once upon a time I couldn’t wait to get behind the wheel of a news unit - not to just burn someone else’s gas, but to roll up on scene with a purpose. It’s the same strand of DNA that drove my older brother to become a career firefighter - then later, a kick-ass paramedic. But whereas Richard helps people, I just put ‘em on tee-vee, and rarely in the way they envisioned. But this post is less about straining for nobility and more about my growing disdain for all that mobility. It’s not that I want to drive a desk - far from it . I’d just like to know where all these mad dashes, fruitless pursuits and exasperating excursions are taking me. I’m guessing, it ain’t easy street. Most likely, I’ll end up a stooped old man with chronic pain in one shoulder and a bad attitude in every other extremity. If that sounds overly bleak, you obviously ain’t logged enough miles in the name of news. Tearful goodbyes and gauzy retrospectives are reserved for the anchor set. We road warriors are lucky to end our careers with new logo-wear and our vision intact. Oh yeah, we also get stories.

Those stories, along with the access to other people’s lives, fueled my desire to chase deadlines for far longer than logic dictated. But an un-funny thing happened on the way to newsgathering glory. I got bored. Lulled to complacency by the numbing repetition of a thousand newscasts, I began looking around a few years ago for a different way to spend my day. Alas, the world did not beat a path to my feet. Instead, I continued my drudgery, shuffling from one semi-scintillating news scene to another, with lots of windshield meditation in between. Stand-offs, sit-downs, stalemates: assignments that used to render me breathless now strike me as monumentally inconvenient. So I did the only thing I knew to do; I began to scribble about the job I used to find so damned interesting. And it worked! Nowadays I’d much rather write about electronic newsgathering than actually saddle up and do it. Too bad my station won’t pay me cash money for half-baked diatribes. Yet.

So now that we’ve established my overall dislike for the nature of the chase, know that I regularly find myself crisscrossing the region for the oddest of reasons. Ribbon-cuttings, racial slurs, reality shows, I’ve raced to and zeroed in on more than I even pretend to remember. But just as I grow comfortable in my lifelong role as a calloused burnout, someone catches my attention through the open window of my own bored existence. Sometimes it’s a kid impressed by the logos, other times it’s a full grown adult enamored with my call letters. Yesterday, it was three happy cats on a nearby bench, who felt it necessary to cheer when I passed by their lunchtime post. Their enthusiasm washed over me from across midtown traffic. Gripping the wheel with a vigor renewed, I smiled to myself and once again felt proud of my profession - even if I was on a three hour quest for all the storm damage I could cram into thirty seconds of air-time. Now if only I could convince my bosses to let me scrub these logos off the doors. Then perhaps, I’d get some peace in the cockpit. On second thought, I’d have to park like a mere mortal again.

Forget what I said...

Schmuck Alert: Mike Truman

Meet Mike Truman, security coordinator for the Travis County sheriff's department. Now, normally you don't hear much about such public servants in obscure positions, but this guy's a real charmer. When this ornery Texan isn't helping his wife fend off charges of animal cruelty, he likes to grapple expensive lenses from the hard-working hands of female photojournalists. At least that's what the pudgy thug pulled last week in Austin when, after finding no kittens to kick outside a Williamson County Courthouse, promptly went all Kenny Rogers on KXAN news shooter Julie Karam.

"I'm thinking, 'This guy's going to hurt me.' That's how frightened I was. I didn't do anything to deserve it."

Now hang on a second, Julie. You were standing on a city street, pointing a privately-owned news camera at a public official as he skulked out of a tense court proceeding. Mr. Truman had every right to wrestle that delicate camera from your guilty fingers and attempt to berate you into submission. He's upset, see. He and the Missus just haven't been the same since the county took eleven dogs and three cats from their home. If you pesky TV people would simply keep your lenses to yourselves, we wouldn't have these problems. Just ask O.J.

But I digress. What happened last week in Austin was simply this. Apoplexy got the better of Deputy Dawg here; his parking lot tantrum was simply an effort to protect his peeps from any more unwanted publicity. Too bad his intended victim kept rolling. Now, what would have been a fleeting few seconds on the evening news is forever enshrined on the internet, where a universe of busy-bodies can cue up his stupidity whenever the notion strikes them. Schmuck!

The Body and the Beauty Queen