Barbarians at the Tape

One might think my slice of Carolina would be a pretty quiet news market. One would be wrong. With three TV stations and a 24 hour cable outfit, you can't swing a dead press release without hitting at least a few camera crews. Throw in something as dire as an apartment fire and a battered fleet of TV vans will materialize, their logo'd poles thrusting above the tanker trucks. Inside those vans, reluctant jackals gather their gear before high-stepping over hoses. They are The Photogs: a loose cabal of Ordinary Joe's who convene at the strangest places. Fewer humans make me feel so at home...

Not that it's a love-fest. Sure, the level of cooperation among competing news crews is higher than any of us will ever admit. But those of us who found ourselves pacing around the Holliday Apartments parking lot didn't cut short our morning mirror time just to bump knuckles. We came to wage television. That means more than picking a perch. Yeah, the attached snapshots may show stolid technician types hunched over their tools, but the actual players are rarely so static. No, we're immersed in a quiet game of oneupmanship. Call it Parking Lot Chess, The Awkward Waltz, Four News Crews Battling for A Limited Number of Soundbites. Whatever, just stay out of my shot!

Okay, so we're not that rude. You can't be when you know you'll face off with the same fellas at the next head-on collision, city council debacle or dog in a hole story. So you go easy, take only video, leave only generator fumes. That doesn't mean you twiddle your thumbs while the victims evaporate. Rather, you profile the crowd for the ousted, the stricken, the chatty. If that sounds crass, well, you have no business gathering news. If you did, you'd know that - for better or worse, people WANT to talk. Not everyone, certainly, but I can't think of many news scenes where someone didn't willingly step before the lens and dispense with the details. Haven't had to pay anyone yet. So watch how you judge those overly-logo'd jackals.

Some of my best friends are overly logo'd jackals.

Pondered While I Wandered...

Many quandaries crossed my mind as I schlepped around the North Carolina State Fair on Wednesday. None had easy answers...

10.) Who deep fries a golden sponge cake, anyway?

9.) Did I just traipse through WRAL's noon live shot?

8.) Are those Goth Kids still following me?

7.) Is basic dental care that hard to come by in 2009?

6.) Was that Criss Angel holding a giant Sponge Bob Doll? Or the other way around?

5.) Seriously. How much could a golf cart cost?

4.) Would the Missus still let me hang one of those Lynyrd Skynyrd mirrors in the playroom?

3.) Am I supposed to feel my spleen?

2.) Did I really just get heckled by a middle aged gypsy in skinny jeans?

1.) Could it have been SO HARD to pay attention in high school?

The Glamorous Life

"Dude, you have the most interesting job!" It's a phrase I've heard a lot over the years and it's certainly true - especially if by interesting you mean 'vexing', 'exhaustive' and 'thankless'. It's all that and more. Just don't call it 'glamorous'. It ain't...

Case in point: the pre-show phone call. Whether you're tuning in a live shot or just trying to figure out why tendrils of smoke are rising from your fancycam, you'll probably be forced to call back to the station for some 'technical support'. While it's not exactly like dialing Calcutta, it's not without its language barriers - especially when the engineer on the other line starts in with the dreaded tech talk. Look I'm a photog - not an astronaut! I don't sketch circuit boards for fun and I ain't big on manuals! There's a room full of people down the hall from you who are counting on a dog in a funny hat story in exactly 22 minutes and if they don't get it we're gonna have more problems than your broken flux capacitator! AAAAAUUUGGGGHHHHH! ... Hello

A-hem. Where was I? Oh yeah, half asleep on my feet while the mayor yammers on about his new plan to paint the underside of all city-owned manhole covers in time for the sesquicentennial. Take Me Lord. Ya know, in the movies all press conferences end in some kind of bombshell announcement, usually followed by a car chase or some kind of montage. In real life, they drone on for far too long - first they they spend twenty minutes recognizing everyone in the room, then they mention a half dozen folk who couldn't make it but send their regrets, then they rush through the prepared statement someone who makes triple my pay wrote for them. By the time they get to the question and answer period, I'm so brain-dead I can barely recite my station's call letters, let alone form cogent inquiry.

They say getting there is half the battle. They're wrong. It's easily two-thirds. Don't follow? You've obviously never received this urgent phone call: "Stew! Spot News! A transfer truck hauling medical supplies just jack-knifed along that dead stretch of I-40 in Cornole County! There's colostomy bags splayed for a hundred yards and traffic's backed up FOR MILES! We need you to roll! And don't foget to wear your safety vest. Sherrif says he'll lock up any nimrod who shows up without one!" That's about the time I regret daydreaming in school all those many years, then I dig some old school Metallica out of the glove box and get in the zone. You'd be surprised how far you can drive in the breakdown lane if you just act like you you're desperately needed on scene. Logos help, too.

"It's not the live shot. It's the breakdown." I cannot tell you how many times I've told that to a young reporter as I took their cellphone and handed them a gadget to pack. See, when you've spent the last ninety minutes of your day going live(!) by the bake sale/train wreck/drive by, there's nothing you want more than to flee the scene of the crime. But like the toddler who's been playing Caped Crusader all day, you can't have snacktime until you put all your bat-toys up. This can be done a couple of ways: like a junkie trying to hide his stash before the cops bust in, or like a forgetful fisherman fondling his favorite lures. I try to aim for somewhere in between, but I'm good with either approach, as long as everything's packed up and ready to go by the time the mast collapses.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go scrub the glamour from my fingernails...

Dad Gone Mad

Richard Heene: Fringe Scientist, Bad Dad, Media Mogul? Yeah, I know; dude's in the running for Tool of the Year - but hear me out: In his quest for fame, this Colorado crackpot hijacked the 24/7 news cycle like we've never seen before. By convincing his brood that salvation would arrive via cable TV fame, Heene concocted a plan so brash, so ingenious, so colossally stupid that he got what he exactly wanted and absolutely nothing to show for it. This guy should be a network executive - or a community organizer - or that weirdo on the corner who waves at traffic all day! I can't decide which...

One thing I do know: Heene (rhymes with weenie) is a few grade schoolers shy of a payload. Who else would entrust their quest for global recognition to a six year old? Who else would invite the cable news jackals to examine his integrity, knowing he'd hammed it up badly on not one, but two episodes of Wife Swap? Who else would sit by idly talking live(!) via satellite to the likes of Meredith Viera while his youngest son hurled into a cup? Hey, John Gosselin's got more class that THAT! But sextuplet abandonment aside, the henpecked half of John and Kate ain't got nothin' on our floppy banged man of the hour. For while he pretty much proved himself unfit to raise gerbils, let alone three young sons, admit it: dude grabbed the attention of a planet!

Mere moments after Heene phones the media first and the Po-leece second, the world took note. Cable news anchors rushed to their sets, deejays lunged for the microphones and newspaper folk kicked themselves for not having better traveled websites. But that didn't stop the unwashed masses. They took to their Twitters, touched up their Facebooks. Suddenly humdrum status updates featuring sandwich choices bristed with dispatches about Balloon Boy. Balloon Boy: authorities hadn't even spotted the Mylar abomination in the sky before a global catch-phrase was set aloft. It would be ours before late night talk show hosts could sink their teeth into the term, but the snark was already racing across the fruited plain. So too were news crews, desperate to join the chase, giddy that such a sensation had swept through their Thursday afternoon. WHAT was Heene thinking?

Hard to know. By all accounts, the man is a moron. He created the perfect shitstorm and all too soon it came raining down upon him and his family. Whole theses can and will be written about what and how he did it, but I'm more taken with why. Dude wanted fame. He got infamy. He yearned for riches. He's getting ridicule instead. Heene deserves every bit of it and while he may end up being a mere footnote to the fall of '09, he represents a new breed of interloper. Never before has it been so easy to manipulate the mind of Mother Earth. Not with overly-social websites, a rabid press and every other taxpayer sporting a telephone that can jack into and ratchet up the mindless media maelstrom...

Now if you'll excuse me, I gotta work on my robot girl. Wait 'til the world gets a load of her...

Satisfaction Doubtful

WANTED: Young nomad to electrify. Must possess firm grip, sniper's eye and a knack for gadgets. Endless missions await. Will supply with aging weaponry, middling assistance and new demands daily. Shoulders eroded. Elbow grease siphoned. Spines misaligned. Empty stares lengthened. Must like ugly weather and attractive gasbags. Motoring skills mandatory. Penchants for pockets a plus. Will train but never coddle. Moderate pay tolerable. Bad attitudes validated. Abuse a certainty. Respect sporadic. Other rewards less tangible: Worldview widened. Anecdotes amassed. Swagger magnified. (House Cats Need Not Apply.)

Beautiful Disaster

Wet pavement, engines' roar, a swath of red and blue ... sling a lens and you'll stumble upon it: a view of the overnight crew. Okay so there's nothing poetic about a midnight collision, but the aftermath does have a lyrical quality all it's own, especially when you approach it with sleep in your eyes. That's how I roll (up): station cap jammed over bedhead, run-bag hanging low, echoes of an unexpected phone call still ringing in my ears. If you've ever scored as backstage pass to a light show such as this , you know how tragic the palette can be. Cory Welch obviously does. Recently, the young Rhode Island freelancer paused to reflect on a beautiful disaster and walked away with an image I'd hang in my upper lair - if only the wife would let me. Where does she think I go when the bedside phone explodes?

Ship to be Square

I may have momentarily lost my focus, but Amanda Emily never has. The displaced media genius and archivist extraordinaire continues to post vintage lens pictures faster than your above average shooter can riff on them. Still, I'm especially taken with this particular shot, a 1920's frame of someone named Hislop. That jaunty brim, the tucked-in tie, that camera that looks like it was fished from the wreck of the Titanic. I don't know when exactly the broadcast photographer went from overdressed optimist to scruffy news bum, but it couldn't have been a pretty transition. Not that the journey is complete. What with lenses diminishing and photogs disappearing by the dozen, the current image of a downtrodden journeyman with a full-sized fancycam on his shoulder will soon seem as outdated as the look of self-satisfaction ole Hislop is rockin'. I just hope I'm still around when it does. Otherwise, who will be able to explain this?