You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
The Magic Tornado and the Live Shot of Trust.
Breaking News is all but impossible to predict.
Shootings and fires and car crashes are like cosmic rolls of the dice.
Sometimes the police scanner announces their arrival: “One Adam 12 – see a man about a dog.”
Sometimes we hear about these incidents from a clandestine call. “Pssst. There’s a car wreck on Clarksville Pike.”
Sometimes a viewer notices something and posts it on Facebook. “Hi Facebook Friends. There’s a water leak on Main St.”
If serious enough, these unplanned events can disrupt the course of photographers, reporters and producers.
Like a jet engine powering up and pushing energy at maximum velocity, the news industry is frenetic.
I like to say I work at the Speed of News.
What’s AT THE SPEED OF NEWS?
If you make 10 blue widgets an hour, AT THE SPEED OF NEWS is your boss telling you to suddenly make 25 red widgets an hour.
2.5 times the widgets and an entirely different color.
Most people would quit or file a labor grievance.
For a newsman, it’s part of the blue print.
It’s unexpectedly expected.
But there is one planned catastrophe news directors can plan for, move their chess pieces into position for.
Weather emergencies! Thanks to Doppler radar and NASA satellite technology, forecasting is not only possible, it is now highly accurate.
This is the scenario facing me. We have known days in advance that a cold front is pushing a warm front, a news recipe for disaster.
My boss is on edge, sensing an opportunity to plan for the catastrophic, to do what cannot be done on a normal day.
Severe weather, though not welcome, is a sure ratings juggernaut.
FACT: if you think you might die, you will stay home to avoid death.
If you are trapped at home trying not to die, you will undoubtedly watch TV to see how close death is to your community.
When you monitor your chance of extinction, Homes Using Television or H.U.T. Levels go up.
When H.U.T. levels are up, there is a better chance viewers will watch a specific channel. The more people watching a specific channel the better the RATINGS.
Ratings = Money.
Higher ratings mean TV stations can charge more for local commercials. More money for local commercials means more revenue to buy equipment, but more specifically it means more bonuses for news directors.
When news director bonuses are tied to ratings, these men and women will do practically anything to get you into the broadcasting circus tent.
So for days our weather team has been predicting changes were coming. For days, the powers that be have been planning, thinking, strategizing on how to move more of you into the circus tent.
The forecast is simple. Thursday strong winds are expected ahead of the front. Weather casters say we will see straight line winds, maybe even some spin up tornadoes.
By the time Thursday afternoon arrives, I know my future. I get to the newsroom at 2 pm. The afternoon meeting is alive with the talk of violent winds. There is absolutely no doubt the winds are coming. There is absolutely no doubt this will be our 10 pm lead.
“Between 7 pm and 9 pm” the weather team says over and over.
My assignment is clear. I will be covering storm damage. I will be live, standing in front of something that has been demolished.
So now it’s a matter of hurry up and wait. It is what it is. I’ve done this a hundred times before.
By 7 pm, some five hours into this sure thing, I get a call from the newsroom.
I hate when the newsroom calls. It is never good. It means that someone back at the station has a bright idea that probably isn’t so bright.
Or it could mean that the scanners of fate have announced the arrival of something unplanned that will force me to make more widgets.
We have parked the live truck at the Bridgestone Arena at the corner of 5th of Broadway, the hub of downtown Nashville.
We have pulled up on the sidewalk and parked in the middle of the concourse.
“I park where I want,: my photographer says confidently.
I have my window rolled down. Warm, 70 degree wind is filling the van.
My phone rings a 2nd time.
My photographer looks at me with concern. He knows the call can change everything.
I wait another moment, enjoying the snappy twang of a country music lick.
Across the street from the arena, the upstairs patio at Rippy’s is open.
People are sauntering across the intersection wearing short sleeve shirts and sun dresses.
I have chosen this spot because it is well lit, and there are lots of people. If anything is going to blow up it’s going to blow up here.
My phone rings a third time.
I exhale with a sigh.
“Hello.”
My ear is suddenly filled with angst.
The powers that be are concerned that we haven’t gathered any news for 5 hours.
What do they think? We’ve been at a strip club making it rain?
The powers that be are concerned that in 3 hours we will have no lead story for 10 pm.
What?
That’s right, after days of planning, after days of knowing that a storm front will arrive between 7 pm and 9 pm suddenly, the news leaders are lost. The newsroom is adrift, without navigational direction. The powers that be are suddenly the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria afraid that this newscast is sailing aimlessly toward the edge of the world.
I pull the phone away from my ear in mid sentence.
I contemplate quitting. I think about throwing the phone at a couple from Kansas strolling by.
A dozen thoughts go through my head.
My photographer looks at me.
“What?”
“They want us to break off, send us to something else. They’re afraid the storm is fizzling.”
My photographer’s face turns into a scowl as he shows me his cell phone app with the bright red and yellow line approaching Nashville.
I think about setting my phone on fire with lighter fluid. I imagine doing a war dance around it while stripping off my clothes ad setting my news spirit free in the 70 degree blustery night.
Instead, I put the phone back to my ear, reconnecting to the angst that is being pushed into my auditory canal.
The words are filled with nervousness, formulating nonsensical noise, overloading my brain like so much garbage being dumped at the land fill.
The new theorem: The weather team is wrong and the storm front has fizzled and the 10 pm newscast is without a lead story.
God Forbid our lead story is our weather team was wrong.
Suddenly stories that didn’t even have a pulse at 2 pm are being reevaluated.
Suddenly I am being asked to get into a giant litter box and uncover freshly hidden cat poop.
“Well maybe we could get that guy over there to talk about this or maybe we could ….”
I pull the phone away from my ear again.
I stare at a group of people crossing the street. They are carrying plastic cups and slapping each other on the back. They are going into Tootsies. They don’t have a care in the world. They don’t care if it rains or if a tornado falls out of the sky. They certainly don’t have a group of people telling them to make new widgets after planning for a disaster for 3 days.
I look at the sky. It is dark and interesting. The blackness is interminable, the possibilities limitless.
I wonder what the sky looks like on the other side of the world? I think to myself.
I wonder if I would be a good used car salesman? I ponder.
If I just started drinking, would anyone even notice?
I put the phone back to my ear.
….”we are afraid the 10 pm news will be left without a lead story,” is all I hear.
I pause not saying a hundred things that fill my brain, that siphon down my spine and filter into my larynx.
Ideas like F-You and Have you ever been outside the newsroom during breaking news and I quit spin through my psyche.
I am tempted like a child to throw a tantrum.
I just want to get out of the live van, rip off my rain coat and go in Tootsies and grab a Corona and line dance with the first fat girl from Nebraska.
All of these crazy ideas sit in the back of my voice box ready to explode like a hand grenade across the spectrum of my newly fired self.
I exhale and look at my photographer.
His eyes are big. He is a bull who has seen the red cape.
All I have to do is ask him to quit and grab a beer and dance with fat Nebraska girls and he is all in.
He has been jerked like a marionette puppet with Tourette’s hundreds of times. If I said “F it. Let’s go get a beer.” He’d buy the 1st round.
I put the phone to my ear and draw on a calming force. I think about the color grey. I imagine hugging a teddy bear. I think about the game Candy Land. I imagine petting puppies.
The urge to fight with daggers like a pirate on the deck of a burning ship is decreasing slightly.
I close my eyes and think about the color pink as I talk. “OK. I thought the weather blowing through Middle Tennessee was the lead,” I say my voice warbling like water starting to boil.
I listen to the nervousness on the phone. It comes from people who have never once gotten wet while covering a planned disaster.
I look at my photographer. Together we have over 40 years of chasing news. He knows the red and yellow storm front is coming. So do I. We have French Kissed the storm before. We know what we know.
“So what do you have in mind?,” I say eye balling the neon lights of Broadway.
I listen to the voices on the other end of the line. Nobody has a clue. There is apprehension and indecision. They just know they don’t know.
After minutes of riding a merry-go-round of indecision, the boss gets on the line.
“Boss. I got 3 Emmy’s. I’ve done this a time or two. If the winds come through here, it will raise a few skirts, it will topple over a few garbage cans. I promise you we’ll jump out with 2 cameras and we’ll make some magic.”
There is a pause then, “I trust you. Go for it!”
Click.
“What happened, my photog asks.
I smile. “He trusts us.”
My photographer is a little surprised.
I am suddenly filled with the need to prove I was right.
“Let’s give them some magic.”
“No problem,” he responds confidently.
We grab our gear and head to the corner.
Tomorrow part 2.
Life’s Crazy™