"All the Best"

According to a strict set of bylaws I just made up, I'm unable to classify this on-camera confrontation as a Schmuck Alert - since no cameras were accosted. But one gets the feeling New Zealand reporter Matt Chisholm would have preferred a Kiwi beatdown over the reaction he got from a strangely - ahem - affection meat-cutter. But I'm getting ahead of myself. It all started when TVNZ's Close Up began investigating claims of horse meat being sold for human consumption. EWWWWW!

Anyway, Chisholm and his lenser do their due diligence - collecting evidence and recording incriminating video before they corner the beefiest of butchers. The ensuing encounter begins typically enough, with Slaughterhouse Clive denying any knowledge of said horseplay. But then, just before the two minute mark, things. get. weird. I'll let your imagination do the rest, but just know Sam the Butcher's urge to cuddle wasn't just unexpected, it was positively genius - as it nearly unraveled our inquisitve friend (who was doing so well until then!). Will this kind of press reception catch on? Hard to tell, but a nation of news crews are already testing that theory by trying to catch rising ingenue Megan Fox in anything unlawful - in hopes her response will be equally amorous. Good luck with that fellas...

(Much love to Stephen CameraGod Press for the heads-up...)

Station to Station

If unpacking gadgets in the shadow of catastrophe is your idea of a fun afternoon, have I got a gig for you. So too does Sean Browning - one of man L.A. based lenslingers caught stalking the plume of the Station Fire. Now I've never covered an inferno of those dimensions, but I have made plenty of Tee-Vee on the side of the road and I can tell you it's not without its potholes. Knuckle-scraping cable spools, passing traffic, a Greek chorus of wisecracking firefighters ... throw in a couple of troublesome Double-AA's and you understand why I've been spotted spinning like the Tasmanian Devil around any number of these modern day chuckwagons. But enough about me - check out the gear! I've staged whole telethons with less equipment! Ya know, it's enough to make this East Coast schlub wanna wing it to Hollywood and get my very own logo'd stagecoach. Hell, I could stand chasing wildfires and mudslides, freeway chases and dead celeb--

On second thought, I'll stick with Hurricanes and Swine Flu...

Unnecesarry Bluffness

See, here's the thing: YOU KNOW Chris Rock ain't in town just as well as I KNOW Chris Rock ain't in town. But when your company issues a 'Press Release' stating (and I quote) "Chris Rock will be in High Point previewing his new movie..." well, you set more than a few news wheels in motion. It starts in the newsroom, where someone whose job it is to decipher incoming faxes suddenly begins speaking in tongues known only to Pentecostal grifters. Now, before I can even duck under my desk, said sinner locks eyes on me and the loopy arm movements and broken syllables increase tenfold. At this point, all logic is suspended - for while everyone in the newsroom realizes the chances of Rock being on this side of the state line are damn near nil, we're obligated to assume it's true, lest we blow it off only to see the popular comedian yukking it up at six on another station.

From here on out, the adventure's mine. Sure, someone from the Art department begins scouring celebrity websites for a suitable image and a few producers debate what movies they should include in the filmography that will follow our sure-to-be exclusive interview - but I'M THE GUY hurtling down the interstate, triangulating surface street stoplights while digging fresh batteries out of the glove box for my digital camera. By the way, you ever run a Cadillac full of elderly furniture shoppers off the road 'cause you were dickering with a memory card when you should have had your mind on the merge? It's a lousy feeling - especially when you finally arrive at prescribed destination only to find the only Chris Rock on the premises is the cardboard cut-out you're not allowed to shoot.

Now don't get me wrong: I like you guys! Your company makes an interesting product and we've done good work together in the past. I'm equally stoked that a big name like Chris Rock made note of your firm in his new film. In fact, I'm happy to do a story on it, but this kind of subterfuge wastes my time and makes us both look silly. It's akin to me calling you up and saying, "Hey, Katie Couric is in town and she wants to tour your plant! Quick, clean up - she's on her way over RIGHT NOW!". Now, I would never do that - and not just because I have absolutely no affiliation with the leggy CBS anchor. Speaking of leggy, that PR lady you sent to intercept me at the movie theater was gorgeous! She could have been a toothpaste model, which would be damn handy since it kinda feels like you guys took a dump in my mouth. Un-Cool. You know, were I a more industrious sort (and not some TV news geek with questionable driving habits), I'd take your little press release around the country as a sterling example of how companies can screw themselves out a well-deserved press opportunity. You know for that kind of presentation, I'd need someone to front it, someone funny, famous and full of street cred...

Someone like, Chris Rock... I hear he's in town.

Nuggets from Doug

And to think I was worried Doug Richard's blog would suffer when we he went back to work. Hardly! Ever since the mind behind Live Apartment Fire signed up with Atlanta's WXIA, he's spoken truth to power with a flurry of posts that would be preposterous were they not so spot-on. This guy's on fire! And I'm not just saying that because he's heaped undue praise on me in the past. No, I click on LAF 'cause it's written by a real person - not some overblown, chiseled phony you see sleepwalking from Sports to Weather, but an honest to God reporter who knows how to play dead in a live truck, where to grub in the inner city and how to act when the shit goes down. If that weren't enough, Doug's doing it all under his real name, thus incurring the slings and arrows of every nutbag with a Blackberry in the greater Atlanta Metroplex. That takes grapes, not to mention a conscious effort never to take one's self too seriously. Trust me: it's harder than you think. In my nearly five years of constant blogging , I've more than earned the wrath of certain competitors and colleagues - simply by pixelating one lenser's opinion. But enough about my busy dance card, this post is for Brother Doug, who's found a paying gig without giving up his voice. Still not convinced? Consider his recent list of newsgathering truisms - which includes a tip so tried, so true, so trenchant - every new reporter should commit it to memory.

8.) If the phone rings at five minutes after noon, beware. It means that the newsroom managers have seen something on a competing TV station’s noon news that your station has overlooked. The phone call means you’re being asked to recoup on a story with a rapidly fading pulse. Consider waiting five minutes, then return the call. The problem may solve itself.

Quick, somebody etch that in stone before I'm forced to write it in lipstick on the ladies room mirror. Then who will be lookin' for work?