You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
The broadcasting live shot.
How many live shots have I done in a quarter century of news gathering?
500? A thousand? 5 thousand?
It’s hard to say.
I figure I have worked 6,500 news days since 1988.
Most days you go live at least once. Sometimes you go live 3 times.
Viewers think you go live only on breaking news like bank robberies and fires.
But the truth of the matter is, most times you go live for no damned reason at all.
There’s a little something in TV news called “live for live sake.”
It means that a producer wants to spice up her show with some extra elements.
A live shot is an extra element. It adds Live and immediacy to a story that might, probably, sucks.
So a reporter and cameraman are sent, like sacrificial lambs, back to the scene of the crime and told to “front” something they have been working on all day.
That’s why you see lazy stupid live shots from the front of a school board meeting or a restaurant.
You the viewer know that nothing is happening.
“Hey honey, isn’t that a building lit up by head lights behind that reporter?”
Yes, we’ve all seen these terrible TV moments.
It’s suppose to add to the overall energy of the piece.
Producers like elements, break outs, graphics, special presentations.
That’s all fine and good, but when it’s raining they don’t get wet. When it’s cold they don’t freeze. When the crowd is drunk and feeling frisky, their safety is not in question.
I was thinking all these things the other night on my 5,000 th live shot.
It is dark and icy cold. I’m on the side of an overpass over the split where I-24 and I-40 converge in Music City.
Below me, the roar of tires on cold asphalt echoes in my left ear.
In my right ear, I hear the end of whatever terrible show abc is airing.
The light in front of me is brilliant like an operating lamp.
I stare at it. I suddenly understand how the moth feels around the camp fire. It is hypnotic like a Victoria Secrets model sasheing down the cat walk.
On the edges of the brilliance is black. It is coal-black. It pitch black. It’s darker than a progressive thought in an Amish school-house.
As I exhale, my breath explodes into the illuminated spectre.
I love watching my breath dance in the camera light. It is thick like smoke and the cold air makes it last an extra beat as it slowly uncoils toward the burning filament.
I feel like I’m inside a smoky jazz club inside a beef refrigerator in outer space.
How many times have I done this?
2,000 times? 3,000 times?
Live for live sake.
I watch as my camera man adjusts the light slightly.
“Give me another white balance,” he says.
I pull out my script and hold it up so he can calibrate the camera to the light settings.
I use this moment to rehearse my line.
“TDOT says 834 people have died so far this year on Tennessee highways….”
“Got it,” he says.
“And distracted driving plays a big part in that statistic,” I finish.
“90 seconds,” the director says in my ear piece.
I pull the hood up over my head. I cocoon inside the warmth. I feel my ears burning.
I really shouldn’t complain. It’s probably 38 degrees. Eskimos in Nome are buttering their belly’s with fish oil and sunning themselves in 38 degrees. But with wind and my lack of time to acclimate to Old Man winter, it just feels raw.
Maybe I’m old. Maybe I’m tired of live for live sake.
“You gonna take that hood off?” my camera man jokes.
I don’t respond. I stare at my feet. I am wearing black loafers. They are suitable in 75 degrees. Tonight they are cardboard skates for my numb feet.
“Yes,” I mumble from the una bomber darkness that is the inside of my hood. ” But not till the last second.”
My ears are stinging. I blow into my hands hoping some of my own hot breath will filter into my hood and warm my ears.
I hate reporters who wear ear muffs.
I just think they look kind of …
Well let’s just say I’m not an ear muff kind of guy.
So tonight I will be forced to blow hot air into my own hood.
It doesn’t work very well.
A truck passes under us.
HONK
Why do motorists honk at TV lights, I think.
It’s a constant.
“Get use to this,” my producer says in my ear. “This is going to be the 1st of many icy live shots this winter.”
She probably didn’t mean anything by it, but the phrase strikes me wrong.
I have frost bite from 18 months in Idaho. It shows up faster than a frat boy to a keg party on the quad.
It’s acting up now.
“Not if I quit first,” I blurt out.
My words spew forward in a cluster of steam and frustration.
How many live shots?
4,000 in my career?
Rain, heat, snow, tornadoes, hurricanes, school board meetings, shootings, fires.
I’ve pretty much done it all.
Rainy days? I’ve been wet more times than a porn star.
Hot days? I’ve sweated more than a Mafia informant on the stand.
Snow days? I’ve been colder than Charles Manson’s soul.
“30 seconds,” the producer says.
“So TDOT has launched a new highway sign campaign to make us all think about safety,” I say practicing one last time before I’m live.
I hear the show’s intro in my ear piece.
“Stand by,” the producer says.
I hear the anchors begin reading the teleprompter, I think about my career.
I’m half a century old and half of my life has been spent chasing news.
Thousands of live shots. Hundreds of producers in my ear. Dozens of cameramen focusing on my ugly mug. And for what? 10 seconds of introductory pepper sauce on a stew of irrelevance.
Then it’s on to sports and weather.
As Mr. Smith said in the Matrix; “it is inevitable Mr. Anderson.”
“And with more on that part of the story, we go to ….”
I feel the adrenaline, I see the light in my eyes. I sense my camera man focus ever so slightly.
I exhale and watch my breath float into the burning light.
I could do this on autopilot. Maybe I am.
I start walking toward the light. it is warm and inviting. Somehow I am no longer cold. Somehow this 10 seconds is ok.
Maybe this is how people crossing over from this world to the next feel. A strange comfort in the light as they move forward.
“That’s right. 834 deaths so far this year on Tennessee highways….”
And so begins another live shot for live shot sake.
Life’s Crazy™