You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
A slow news day.
It’s everything you think it is.
It’s watching paint dry. It’s watching butter melt on warm toast. It’s a slow motion dance with a yawn.
I had a slow news day today.
It’s not the sexy news I often tell you about.
It’s more fun to write about tornadoes and fires and bombs and bullets.
Today it was pillow fluff and phone calls to answering machines that said “leave a message.”
Slow News is journalistic death.
It’s the grim reaper coming out of a filing cabinet with an old IBM typewriter and soggy cigar saying “I need a lead son. You gotta lead?”
Good news is a crack high with words. New news, breaking news, flowing, uncontrolled news is a bottle of after shave on a newly shaved neck.
It stings, but it feels invigorating.
Today it’s stale and stagnant and timeless nonsense.
“Nothing going on” is a stake to the heart of a newsman.
“Nothing going on” is kryptonite to a broadcaster.
It’s a bologna sandwich with no bread, no mustard, just meat in your hand.
“Eat that Newsman!”
We are adrenaline junkies, snorting spot news and brushing our teeth with pain and anguish.
I call 100 cops. “I got Nothing,” they say.
I call city sources. “Sorry! Zero for ya.”
I start considering stories that I should never consider as stories.
“We could go back and see if they painted the other side of that fence,” I sadly say, embarrassed those words come out of my mouth.
The producer’s face twists into a gigantic ass pucker that wants to launch itself off a ledge.
“No,” she says.
Tick. Tock.
Ten O’Clock doesn’t care.
“Do you want news bitches?” The news clock purrs. “I stop for no newsman!”
And so it goes. 2pm becomes 3pm. 3pm becomes 4pm.
I call cops and detectives and people I have called twice all ready.
“What are you stoned?” they muse. “You are all ready called me. I told you, I got nothing.”
That word again.
NOTHING.
ARRRGHH.
It’s not all wasted energy. I get 2 new tips on stories that might yield fruit in the future.
“Can I do them today?” I whine.
No, my sources say. “Need to wait.”
ARRGGHHH!
Suddenly, the assignment desk mentions there is a water main break 45 minutes away.
A water main break?
Outside this cubicle, away from this computer screen.
It sounds like an oasis of salvation.
“I’ll go,” I say jumping up with an alacrity, normally reserved for a building fire full of fireworks.
Anything to get out of this mausoleum, I think.
And so we are off to the world’s biggest water main break.
Ah….
not really.
When we arrive, 3 humpty dumpty public works guys are in an 8 foot hole in the middle of a man’s lawn. It looks like a crypt or a swimming pool is going to be installed.
“Holy mackerel,” I say aloud to the dirty man in the hole.
“What the hell happened here?”
“Water pipe busted. Gotta find the leak so we can tear out the bad pipe and put in the new one.”
I look at the home owner leaning on his car. He is relatively calm considering his front yard is now an excavation pit.
“You wanna be on the news?” I ask.
I sense his insouciance. He mulls over my question.
Just then a guy toting three pizzas walks by.
The man watches the pizzas head onto his porch.
“Nah, I don’t think so,” he says with all the interest of cold bacon.
I take a few pictures of the hole, of the workers, of the little bob cat. I ask the workers if they want to talk.
Nobody seems so inclined.
I call the station and tell them it’s a voice over at best.
“You aren’t going to package it?” they ask.
“It affects all of 6 houses,” I respond. “No.”
“Well we need a package,” they retort.
“What?” my photographer asks from the driver’s seat. “What are they saying?”
“They gotta fill time,” I respond.
His face contorts. he is angry.
“OK, so what do you have in mind?” I ask the assignment desk.
“Well, why don’t you go to a bar and get reaction to a new GM announcement tomorrow. New cars, new jobs, stuff like that.”
“A bar? To talk about a new car plant? It’s lame you know?”
“We know,” she says her words trailing off.
We go to the bar. It’s blue-collar and by 8pm it’s a moving violation. Every patron smokes. The bar is dark and the music a mix of styles.
I notice that people have come straight from their jobs to sit at this bar.
I see dirt on t-shirts. I see smudges on faces.
These are hard-working Americans. They are tired. They work hard for their money and they are having a beer or a burger or both.
They know me and shout out my name.
It’s as if I am Norm at Cheers.
Everyone wants to talk to me, pat me on the back, ask me what’s going on.
“Hey you curse just like us,” the man with smudge says.
“I am you guys,” I say. “I wish I could have a beer with ya, but I’m on the job.”
They smile and proceed to tell me about the plant and the economics and the jobs and the new vitality.
The story is not earth shattering. In fact, it’s a rehash of a story that a reporter did day side.
But I do put my own stink on it. It’s dark and different and I concentrate on people.
It’s exactly 1 minute long.
It’s not great. It’s not bad. It just is. It makes its slot and nobody will ever talk about it again.
The producer doesn’t care. The news director won’t say a word.
Nobody will care, including the news clock.
Tick Tock.
Told you 10 O’Clock comes regardless of whether the news is piping hot crazy, or cold molasses on toast.
A slow news day is still a news day.
Here’s to the Gods of crazy whipping up a journalistic news frenzy tomorrow.
Life’s Crazy™