Some weeks...
This is Austin, Texas...and it's nice when my head isn't splitting open like a rotten cantaloupe.
So...my first full-time week since the end of September, 1994 has come and gone. It came with great anticipation. It went with a migraine/stress headache and virtually no stories done for the day.
So, I didn't even hit the street until Thursday. Monday through Wednesday was spent getting the other new person up to speed on software and what-not. She'd only been gone for a year, so she's got most of our procedures and such. So, there I was, Thursday morning, driving one of the station news buggies: A '96 four-door Ford Contour, bedecked in red, white and blue (a la the Texas flag) with "NEWSRADIO 590 KLBJ" on each door, the hood, the roof and the back window. (I'm in Texas. There's no word for "subtle" in the Texan language, so they just aren't.) First day was okay. Bear in mind that I hit the street at 6:00am, so it's an early start. I do some live stuff in the morning from my new station cell phone, much as I did from my desk when I was anchoring. (For someone who vowed never to have a cellular phone...now I have TWO! C'est la vie moderne!) I had a nice manhunt to cover in the midday, so there was stuff to do after morning drive.
Today, by contrast, was bovine fecal matter of the ultimate magnitude. One of the things we use a lot is the newspaper. (It's okay. They listen to us and we borrow from each other liberally.) So, I buy my newspaper at the convenience store next door (Unintentional rhyme! Bonus points!), hop into the news buggy and head toward police headquarters (my first stop of the day). I try to call the station to see what else is going on, and my hand-free device craps out. Then I understand there's stuff on my e-mail for today, and I have to stop by the station. Then I try to get into position to write my story for 6:30, only to find I'd bought yesterday's paper. So, my news director had to give me notes over the phone...I faked a voicer for 6:30 and went to the nearest store that actually had a paper for 25 June. Now I can get to police HQ...but no. The station calls: Suspicious package being examined at the state school for the deaf. There's not enough time to get down to South Austin before I'm needed again at 7:00. So I stop downtown, do another voicer, drive to the deaf school, find nothing, drive back downtown do another voicer for 7:30. I've already driven about 25 miles and the sun's only barely up.
After a quick rendezvous with one of the other street reporters to do live reports on the remote transmitter in his news buggy, I'm ready for lunch. Well, I would have been, if I'd brought it. So, I find a Starbucks, because I could use some corporate coffee, too. The midday anchor has a story idea for me, although a sad one: A woman whose husband had set her on fire on Christmas, 2000 died last week. Her wake is tonight and her funeral is tomorrow. Crass though it might sound, it's a good story, considering the Texas Attorney General is preparing to launch a new domestic violence awareness campaign. So she looks up the address and phone number of the woman's mother and I'll be in business right after I have some lunch...that I forgot to bring.
After a stop at a Starbucks, I was back to police headquarters, where the Public Information Officer wanted me to wait for an indeterminate amount of time. (I, however, drew the line at 15 minutes.) Then I tried to ring this dead woman's mother, only to get an answering machine. Like a good reporter, I leave my phone number. Like a good battery-powered device, my phone registered "low battery." (It had been on the same charge since Wednesday.) Well, I wonder if we have any car chargers at the station.
As I'm driving back to the station, I start getting the familiar "swirlies" at the edges of my vision. My head begins to tighten. I can hear my pulse louder than the car radio. My day is dissolving faster than Alka-Seltzer in warm water. I get back to the station and I know I'm not feeling well, when my news director greets me with, "Are you okay, man?!" I filed one more story and went home. Sarah put me to bed at noon, iced me down and that was the end of my first week as a full-timer.
Here's hoping that such ignominious starts are rewarded with better weeks ahead. I hope that because I am (and shall ever be) an Oregonian abroad, and we're just an optimistic bunch.
So...my first full-time week since the end of September, 1994 has come and gone. It came with great anticipation. It went with a migraine/stress headache and virtually no stories done for the day.
So, I didn't even hit the street until Thursday. Monday through Wednesday was spent getting the other new person up to speed on software and what-not. She'd only been gone for a year, so she's got most of our procedures and such. So, there I was, Thursday morning, driving one of the station news buggies: A '96 four-door Ford Contour, bedecked in red, white and blue (a la the Texas flag) with "NEWSRADIO 590 KLBJ" on each door, the hood, the roof and the back window. (I'm in Texas. There's no word for "subtle" in the Texan language, so they just aren't.) First day was okay. Bear in mind that I hit the street at 6:00am, so it's an early start. I do some live stuff in the morning from my new station cell phone, much as I did from my desk when I was anchoring. (For someone who vowed never to have a cellular phone...now I have TWO! C'est la vie moderne!) I had a nice manhunt to cover in the midday, so there was stuff to do after morning drive.
Today, by contrast, was bovine fecal matter of the ultimate magnitude. One of the things we use a lot is the newspaper. (It's okay. They listen to us and we borrow from each other liberally.) So, I buy my newspaper at the convenience store next door (Unintentional rhyme! Bonus points!), hop into the news buggy and head toward police headquarters (my first stop of the day). I try to call the station to see what else is going on, and my hand-free device craps out. Then I understand there's stuff on my e-mail for today, and I have to stop by the station. Then I try to get into position to write my story for 6:30, only to find I'd bought yesterday's paper. So, my news director had to give me notes over the phone...I faked a voicer for 6:30 and went to the nearest store that actually had a paper for 25 June. Now I can get to police HQ...but no. The station calls: Suspicious package being examined at the state school for the deaf. There's not enough time to get down to South Austin before I'm needed again at 7:00. So I stop downtown, do another voicer, drive to the deaf school, find nothing, drive back downtown do another voicer for 7:30. I've already driven about 25 miles and the sun's only barely up.
After a quick rendezvous with one of the other street reporters to do live reports on the remote transmitter in his news buggy, I'm ready for lunch. Well, I would have been, if I'd brought it. So, I find a Starbucks, because I could use some corporate coffee, too. The midday anchor has a story idea for me, although a sad one: A woman whose husband had set her on fire on Christmas, 2000 died last week. Her wake is tonight and her funeral is tomorrow. Crass though it might sound, it's a good story, considering the Texas Attorney General is preparing to launch a new domestic violence awareness campaign. So she looks up the address and phone number of the woman's mother and I'll be in business right after I have some lunch...that I forgot to bring.
After a stop at a Starbucks, I was back to police headquarters, where the Public Information Officer wanted me to wait for an indeterminate amount of time. (I, however, drew the line at 15 minutes.) Then I tried to ring this dead woman's mother, only to get an answering machine. Like a good reporter, I leave my phone number. Like a good battery-powered device, my phone registered "low battery." (It had been on the same charge since Wednesday.) Well, I wonder if we have any car chargers at the station.
As I'm driving back to the station, I start getting the familiar "swirlies" at the edges of my vision. My head begins to tighten. I can hear my pulse louder than the car radio. My day is dissolving faster than Alka-Seltzer in warm water. I get back to the station and I know I'm not feeling well, when my news director greets me with, "Are you okay, man?!" I filed one more story and went home. Sarah put me to bed at noon, iced me down and that was the end of my first week as a full-timer.
Here's hoping that such ignominious starts are rewarded with better weeks ahead. I hope that because I am (and shall ever be) an Oregonian abroad, and we're just an optimistic bunch.