'In It to the Hilt'

It's not so politically correct to admire Ernie Pyle's journalism anymore - his frontline columns from the hedgerows of World War II were brimming with sanitized action and a pervasive pro-American bent. But as a lover of troubled men who live through their words, I can't help but place Pyle high in the pantheon of torn epistlers. Consider his career: An accomplished travel writer before the war, Pyle added his powers of description to the nation's arsenal - first earning distinguishing himself in London where he issued street-level dispatches as the Luftwaffe's bombs pounded down around him. From there he rarely looked back, traveling with little more than a bedroll (and a bottle) as he slogged through the foxholes of North Africa, Normandy and beyond, always choosing the company of dogface grunts over spitshine Generals. Blind to high politics, this bedraggled little figure focused his sniper's eye for deadly detail on the young men dropping like flies around him. The resulting onslaught of newspaper columns held a worried nation spellbound. Long before television took viewers to the frontlines, Ernie Pyle's damaged genius transported his readers half a world away - where their sons and uncles were busy perfecting mechanized slaughter, when not dying in the process. Ernie eventually died too, caught in the temple by a Japanese bullet in a ditch in Okinawa. News of his passing caused Presidents to pause, housewives to collapse and combat veterans to cry, all distraught over the senseless demise of the G.I.'s humble, battle-hardened chronicler. We should all be so conflicted...

Newsgathering Givens

With the February book mercifully over, it’s strictly general assignment work for your humble lenslinger. That means I’ll be at the mercy of the News Gods, those schizophrenic deities who hurl whim and happenstance my way in the most incovenient order. That’s not to say I don’t know what I‘ll be doing...

For I’m fairly certain I’ll soon be in pursuit of the freshly upturned. Not that we chase a lot of bent sheet metal ( as I assured a photog candidate last week), but with a couple of high-speed interstates and a dozen or so police entities around these parts, it’s a safe bet I’ll be schlepping electronics up someone‘s asphalt pretty soon. If the prospect of that won’t get you out of bed every morning, perhaps you should look into selling Amway.

Or you could just stick to the press conference beat. There’s never a shortage of those. Whether it’s the Governor chortling through a series of shout-outs or a city councilwoman calling for the head of another, there’s always fun to be had when the podium is manned. Okay, that’s a lie. Most pressers suck. Ninety-nine percent of the sound recorded at them never makes air - a fact that always seem to escape the attention of all those choked-up orators.

When I’m not asleep on my feet in front of a crowd, I’m usually driving around like a madman without a road-map. But daze spent behind the wheel are just a part of the photog life, for all those news items don’t exactly come to us. Instead we have to go pick it up on a moments notice and get it to the viewers before it crystallizes into tomorrow’s headline. All that last minute delivery doesn’t happen without some truly stupid parking, something I’ve been working years at to perfect.

But no matter where the gig takes me, you can damn sure bet I’ll take my sticks. That’s because nothing shores up your shot like a set of artificial shoulders. Trouble is, ‘shouldering’ is about all they’re good for. They don’t walk, stand up by themselves or make for very good conversationalists, but you won’t find a self-respecting photog on the planet who doesn’t cherish his ’pod. Well, there was that one guy, but who needs stability when all you shoot are spiraling footballs and locker room philosophy?

Tools aside, there is another element of newsgathering I can be assured of encountering. Label it by-product, excrement or straight up shee-yite, they’ll be more than enough fecal matter to go around, both underfoot and theoretic. How I handle said daily crap-fest is more a matter of my mood than anything else. Sometimes handle it with aplomb, I most often bitch a little as I pick it out of my teeth. You would too, I bet.

ConvergeSouth 2007: Be There

Consider this the first of many items on ConvergeSouth 2007 - the third incarnation of Greensboro's annual summit of geeks, thinkers and on-line vagabonds. Why here? Because the not so stretchy metroplex in which I dwell boasts the cyber-nightlife of a far bigger 'burg. In L.A., it's said every waiter has a screenplay. In Greensboro, every milkman's got a blog. Okay, so not many dairy drivers actually hammer out manifestos every night, but we have every other breed of insatiable communicator ... office-seekers and laptop addicts, Classics geeks and Nascar fans, tattooed anarchists and self-described millionaires. It's a fun bunch - especially when we get together nose-ring to goatee, sweater vest to Carhartt.

In years past, we've even managed to attract a rogue's gallery of cyber-icons, from blogging's true rock stars to hopped-up roadies of The Fifth Estate. Speaking of that new sphere of participatory media, it's exactly what we're focusing on this year at ConvergeSouth. Far more than journalism currently in flux, the very way we interact with others is forever skewed by the onslaught of personal technology. We'll delve into the how's and why's of all that for two whole days in late October, which is a spectacular time of year to savor the Piedmont. So save the date (OCT. 19-20) and know that this is the year ConvergeSouth grows up. Video. Film. Live Music. Interactivity. This guy's even gonna say a few words...

Arc of a Diver

Since May of 2004 I’ve juggled a Fuji digital camera with my one free hand, shoving into an over-stuffed runbag, whipping it out at crime scenes, thrusting it into the hands of strangers. The other day I dropped the damn thing. Hard. It landed on the fragile battery door, tiny screws blowing out at the point of impact. I could only collapse on the sun-baked carcass and weep for my fallen friend, despite the fact I been cussin’ it for the better part of two years. See, it sucks in low light and it has a trigger delay that makes action shots near impossible - all inherent limitations of a digital point and shoot. But all those faults were forgotten the moment it slipped from my hairy fingers, only seconds before it made that awful bounce.

When no more tears would come, I gathered up the small metal shards in my trembling palms and lovingly packed the parts away in a spare camera bag. For days, I rode around it with in the back of Unit Four, avoiding rearview mirror glances as I worked my way through the seven stages of grief. Shock (Doh!). Denial (That did NOT just happen). Bargaining (Bring her back Lord and I‘ll stop tossing her in the floorboard!). Guilt (My hands were slippery with chicken grease) . Anger. (Why do I suck?). Depression (I‘ll just lay down behind this Back Yard Burger dumpster) until finally, Acceptance. Eventually I got hungry and wandered inside, where I swaddled my loss in a most delicious Barbeque Bacon Burger.

Today I pulled Weaver aside and broke the news to him. He was his usual stoic self, though he seemed more intrigued with my lunch selection than my tale of woe. After he swung by the snack machine, he met me out by our motley fleet. With a heavy tug at the case’s zipper, I splayed the remains atop the hood of the nearest news unit. It was I realized the elaborate funeral plans I’d sketched out in dashboard dust was a tad premature. My Fuji lay broken, but not dead. A thorough exam uncovered the facts: hefty abrasions, a few missing screws, an unattached battery door. After conferring with Weaver, I decided to operate - summoning every bit of technical expertise I’ve developed over 17 years of electronic field maintenance. That’s right, I wrapped tape around it.

It powered back up, but it ain’t right. Here’s hoping I can convince the fiduciary arm of Lenslinger Incorporated to authorize an upgrade expenditure. (I think she’s downstairs, playing her piano.)

Rats at Eleven

You think the photog who recorded video of those restaurant rats knew he was capturing history? Freelance cameraman Rafael Garcia Jr. is credited with shining his light (and lens) through the Taco Bell/KFC’s window, after local stations received phone tips about rodents doing the hokey-pokey in the fast food joint’s dining room. This, my friends, is why the space aliens who crash-landed in Roswell gifted us with all this new technology. I mean, covering global politics is good, I suppose - but nothing titillates the denizens of our twisted orb like something real, something important, something, well…skeevy. Taco Bell’s mouse club is a textbook example. Within hours of Garcia’s landmark ‘get’, his footage ricocheted from satellite to living room, holding a nation no less than enthralled with the scampering health code violations. For a few minutes the cable nets even stopped ripping flesh off Anna Nicole’s corpse to dish on the fast food rats. By midnight, the whiskered little fellas were reading the Top Ten list as Letterman pretended to chortle off-screen.

It just goes to show you how easily we in the Fourth (and Fifth Estate) are distracted by something stupid. Is this what Gutenburg had in mind when he invented the printing press? What Al Gore was thinking about when he created the internet out of PVC pipe and elbow noodles? I think not. I remember what my journalism professor said - you know, the one whose classes I never once attended… I’m told he spoke at length about using our journalistic powers for the greater good - and not be sidetracked by the slippery and the salacious. It’s one reason I’ve dedicated my entire career to covering nothing but substantial issues, eschewing the prurient and the silly in a lifelong quest to serve --- Hey look! Is that a squirrel in a top hat??? Roll the sat truck, I‘ve got a job to do!!!

Ode to Rosey

Damn that Rosenblum. First we swoops in on troubled TV stations and pedals his concept of a newsroom comprised entirely of one-man-bands. Some outlets bought what he was selling and continue to produce (what I would deem as) mostly mediocre fare. Now the self-styled messiah of local news has cracked open a blog, where he's impressing an awful lot of well-intentioned folk who, when you get right down to it, don't know dick about putting together newscasts. AT least that's how I see it. Then again, I'm no jet-setting contestant. No ex-newspaper guru searching for a new frontier. No elbow-patched professor lording over hapless neophytes with theories borne of morning bravado and afternoon bongwater.

No, I'm just an undereducated cameraman - which according to many self-appointed web experts is a mostly dullard breed, a slack-jawed adventurer bent on routine, not revolution. Still, even a mouth-breather like can sense evolution on the horizon. TV news has stagnated. Lay the blame on the rabid consultants and gutless administrations of a thousand broadcast outlets. In attempting to perfect the form, they homogenized it, until all that was left was a pale husk of a once thriving medium. Couple that malaise with an explosion in persoanl media devices and you have the communications equivalent of Nirvana sending all those hair-metal acts a packin'. But don't toss in yer spandex yet. This battle of the bands ain't nearly over.

Bad music metaphors aside, it's an exciting and frustrating time to be a TV news shooter. (When isn't it?) Digital editing, cell phone acquiaitin and web-based delivery has unearthed countless new chasms for your local camera crew explore. But there's something about the word 'crew' that really cheeses Rosenblum. He contends your favorite newscast would skyrocket in quality if only the two-person teams would go their separate ways - mini-lenses, magic laptops and trucker hats in tow. Okay, so I tacked on that last item, but since this ain't exactly the priesthood we're talking about transforming here, a little smarmy humor is more than called for. Rosenblum seems to agree. His blog, for all its sweeping assertions and attempted mojo, makes for damn interesting reading. It's what makes this cocky little dude in black so hard to totally dismiss.

See, Rosenblum's got a half dozen or so really incisive thoughts about the sorry state of TV news. Were he not so unrelentingly smug about it, he might convince the pros who squint for a living that he ain't pushin' snakewater on the most stricken of station executives. I for one appreciate his stance that solo-newsgatherers can contribute mightly to nightly newscasts. Then again, that's what I've been doing for the better part of 17 years, long before this hated enemy of the career shooter started pouring his kool-aid down the twin tubes of the modern internets. In fact, a small part of me would love to jet down to Nashville (or San Fran, or wherever) and show Rosey and his peeps how a journeyman photog can outpace his Vee-Jays with a good ole, full-size fancy-cam. I believe he'd have me to - if only to coerce me with elixers and maxims. The first week I'm cut free from mortgage-paying, news-making and wife-obeying, I'm there.

Until then, Rosenblum, I'm watching you...

Silence of the Pervs

Hey, remember my recent trip to the Sex Offender's Unit? Boy, I do. Not because the visit itself made such a mental imprint, but because the resulting edit session left every frame of footage seared into my frontal lobe. No sweat. Next time a ratings period roll around I'll throw my lens behind another project: Spatula Plant Shutdown, Fruit Cup Uproar, Dog Catcher Debacle ... something. Whatever it may be, I can only hope for more savory fare. I mean, now that I've done the whole 'Cool Hand Luke' thing (again), can't I cherry-pick something, I dunno - frothier? Ooh , I got it - Swedish Barmaid Convention, or Krispy Kreme Taste Test - How 'bout Coma Patient Skydive Camp? Just imagine the cinematic possibilities of that one! Jeff? Bueller? Anyone?