by Julie Kramer
((RILEY/LIVE))
A ST. PAUL POLICE OFFICER
WAS SHOT ABOUT AN HOUR
AGO … FOUR BLOCKS FROM
THE STATE CAPITOL.
NO SUSPECTS ARE IN
CUSTODY … NO MOTIVE
HAS BEEN DETERMINED …
WE JOIN POLICE AT A LIVE
BRIEFING FOR THE
LATEST…
The cop explained that officer Emily Flying Cloud was currently undergoing surgery. She’d apparently been leaving a restaurant with her K9 partner when she was shot from a distance. A bystander dialed 911 from his cell phone. According to a witness, her dog had snarled around the officer’s fallen body and kept everyone else back until the first squad arrived.
A newspaper reporter inquired whether her dog’s actions might have delayed medical attention. The public information officer dismissed that by saying first responders were on the scene in just over a minute and none of the gathering crowd was trained to render assistance anyway.
As he continued his briefing, out of the corner of my eye I noticed a large black-and-tan German shepherd straining his leash, held by a pudgy cop with a receding hairline.
Police were asking for help from the public—perhaps someone noticed something unusual prior to the shooting, perhaps a description of the assailant or a suspicious vehicle. The PIO was running out of steam and content so the producer in news control gave me a wrap in my ear, then instructed me to toss to our reporter standing by at the hospital, so he could also regurgitate what had been said minutes earlier.
I didn’t hear the stunned scream from the control booth because my own scream drowned it out. When I watched the air check later, the scene would have been funny if it were happening to another reporter. Just as the camera switched from the PIO to me, and I opened my mouth to speak, I flew out of frame.
My photographer panned down to me on the ground, flat on my back, a big dog sitting on my chest, licking my face.
n TV news, they love ya till they don’t love ya anymore. They can be the bosses. They can be the viewers. They can be the advertisers.
Occasionally that love can last an entire career, but more likely by the end of a contract, a ratings book, a newscast, or even a live shot, the love is gone.
Noreen clearly loved me less at the end of tonight’s newscast than at the beginning. With her jet-black hair, luminous skin, and business-chic wardrobe, she looked prettier, as well as younger, than me. I hate that combination in a boss.
She muttered something about me being “amateurish on air” a couple of hours later when I walked into her fishbowl office in the middle of the newsroom. Only glass walls separated her from her subjects. This office design cut into her privacy, but also ours.
“Another way to look at it,” I responded, “is that I landed an exclusive with the partner of the wounded cop.”
The big dog was Shep: a German shepherd who had been my roommate and bodyguard last fall when a serial killer was tracking my investigation into dead women named Susan. Shep’s attitude and performance made it clear that he was better suited to being a public servant than a household pet. He even had the scars to prove it, including a torn ear. He’d since become a legend in the police K9 world—Minnesota’s top drug-sniffing dog.
With his police partner felled by a bullet, Shep latched on to me like old times. The St. Paul cops reluctantly gave me temporary custody since he refused to go home with anyone else. Police departments don’t house their K9 troops in kennels. They live with their human partners and are trained to work only with them.
Noreen didn’t actually mind Shep being in the newsroom: she was a big animal lover, and even had a dalmatian of her own named Freckles. She was the kind of news tyrant who wouldn’t take shit from anybody but would pick up her pup’s poop unflinchingly.
“Shep better not distract you from May,” she said.
“No, he’ll be a ratings attraction,” I countered. “He can sit beside me for my set piece tonight at ten.”
“Well, Riley,” Noreen considered, “I guess there’s some promotional value in that.”
“Absolutely,” I used my best suck-up-to-the-boss voice. “You’re always telling us how viewers love animals and children.”
“That is true.” She nodded as if there was no disputing facts. “But your hours are so unpredictable, this can’t be a long-term arrangement.”
I couldn’t tell if her concern was for Shep or me. Probably Shep.
“It won’t be. I’ll put in a call to Toby Elness. Shep likes him best.”
Toby was Shep’s previous owner. He had a big heart, but a small house filled with an eclectic mix of dogs, cats, birds, and fish. He had noticed Shep’s potential for law enforcement and had donated him to the K9 unit. Turns out, Shep was a natural-born police dog.
“Toby’s very proud of what Shep has accomplished,” I continued. “I’m sure he’d enjoy a reunion with him until Officer Flying Cloud recovers.”
The latest word from the hospital: she’d survived surgery. Doctors removed a nasty bullet from her lung.
The latest word from the cops: no leads on the investigation. They theorized a sniper shot her from the top of a parking garage down the block.
“As long as you’re here, Riley,” Noreen said, “let’s talk about May sweeps.”
The problem with being a television investigative reporter is sweeps. February, May, and November are major ratings months in which viewership is measured and careers made and lost. These months carry a different pressure than daily news. General-assignment reporters can knock off a story a day and count down to the weekend. For investigative reporters, each day of researching for the next blockbuster usually brings them another day closer to deadline, but still no story.
“I’d like to turn a piece on the meth cartel, Noreen. Remember?”
“I thought we already canned that.”
She was referring to the dead body I’d found while house hunting. Ends up, the murder victim was a drug dealer. His buddies stopped trusting him. And in those circles, when the trust is gone, so is your life.
Channel 3 aired twenty seconds about the homicide on the early news, but Noreen had nixed my suggestion we delve deeper, calling the corpse an unsympathetic character.
“Viewers don’t relate to murder victims with lengthy rap sheets. Bring me a dead drug dealer people will care about,” she said, “then we’ll talk.”
Now that cold medicine containing pseudoephedrine is no longer available over the counter without identification, dealers are bringing crystal meth up from Mexico instead of making it themselves in rural Minnesota farmhouses. Crank, glass, speed, ice, zip, by whatever name it’s called, the potency of methamphetamine makes it America’s most addictive drug.
Visually the harm is easy to demonstrate. Addicts lose their teeth and sometimes their minds. I wanted to show meth flourishing in unexpected neighborhoods. Like the one I almost bought into.
“If I could just get some additional resources to help me on stakeout,” I said, “I think it would lead somewhere.”
“Not in time for May it won’t,” Noreen responded. “Besides surveillance-intensive investigations are hugely expensive. You don’t have enough evidence to merit that kind of expenditure.”
We’d be aiming to track people with eyes in the back of their heads. That meant three chase vehicles, always trading position, sometimes following in front of the target car, sometimes on parallel streets. Noreen was right about the resources required for successful surveillance.
Money stood on the front line of most story discussions these days. Across the country, television stations were losing news viewers to the Internet and still hadn’t figured out how to fight back beyond cutting staff.
Channel 3’s February viewership fell double digits from the previous year, but the drop couldn’t be blamed on the network’s leading prime-time lineup. Noreen recently balanced the newsroom budget by axing a beloved million-dollar meteorologist whose contract was
up. The audience reacted by boycotting his replacement, furthering the ratings slump.
Bosses usually prefer canning off-air personnel to on-air personalities, but they can only slash so deep in that direction. Keeping newscasts on the air requires a legion of producers, directors, photographers, video editors, tape-room engineers, and others. Rumors were circulating that unless the May numbers were good, our network owners would demand our budget be trimmed another 10 percent.
And while I wistfully contemplated the days of a 40 share—the equivalent of a TV grand slam out of the ballpark—industry consultants proclaimed those news numbers gone. Only the Olympics and perhaps an American Idol scandal stood a chance of scoring a 40.
Under the current media meltdown, 30 was the new 40.
Newspapers were sinking even faster. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune and St. Paul Pioneer Press had cut staff with buyouts and layoffs. Both papers now seemed to be putting their energies into suburban stories they’d normally reject as too soft or too local.
“We need to turn investigations faster and cheaper.” Noreen’s voice had an “or else” tone. “I need more face time from you, Riley.” That meant she wanted me to turn more stories—to get my face on the news more often.
“I understand,” I answered, not exactly agreeing but not wanting to argue, either.
Sometimes a reporter’s value is judged not just by rating points but by the quality of their work. Whether their stories create community buzz; whether they land major journalism awards.
More recently, reporter worth comes down to a basic math formula—story count. Because newsrooms are computerized, those numbers are easy to run. Simply type in a reporter’s name and search through the last year’s story archives … then call them in for a job review.
Noreen had done her math.
“Here’s your story count for last year,” she said, handing me a piece of paper.
I didn’t need to see the number in black-and-white. I already knew I’d had a bad year by that measure. But I also knew that I had a strong finish in terms of ratings. Channel 3 had won November on my back. But I knew better than to bring that up. The previous sweeps are old news.
“I’ll crash on May, Noreen,” I said. “I promise.”
She looked skeptical.
Large-market TV newsrooms from Miami to Phoenix to Los Angeles were slashing expensive investigative units to improve their bottom line. And just because viewership is in decline doesn’t mean station owners are willing to sacrifice profits. A TV station aims for a 40 percent profit margin; a grocery store survives on 1 percent.
“Okay, Riley, I’ll bite, what else do you have for May?” Noreen demanded.
Our conversation was not going well for me. Shep rubbed against my leg and gave me an idea about how to curtail the discussion.
“It’s complicated, Noreen,” I stalled. “And Shep needs to go outside. How about if we sit down tomorrow when we have more time?”
Noreen glanced at the clock. “How about if you just talk real fast.”
So I threw out the wedding-dress story because I really didn’t have much else beyond a rehashed consumer investigation about food manufacturers reducing package sizes to avoid raising prices and hoping consumers wouldn’t notice.
“Let me get this straight.” Noreen leaned over her desk so she could look me in the eye. “The groom vanished more than six months ago, and no one ever filed a police report?”
Hard to believe. And harder to explain.
“That’s how it looks so far. I need to do more research. Everybody seemed to figure he got cold feet and would show up eventually.”
“It’s odd, Riley,” Noreen continued, “but I’m not sure it’s a news story.”
“You’re just saying that because the victim is a man instead of a young woman.”
“I think it’s a little premature to call him a victim.” Noreen paused, weighing the possibility, as unpleasant as it might be, that I could be right.
“If a bride disappeared the night before her wedding, we’d be tripping over network crews,” I said. “The story would be so 24-7, there’d be wall-to-wall satellite trucks.”
It’s a media fact. Missing women get much bigger news play than missing men. And missing white women get the biggest play of all. I knew better than to bring that up with Noreen because it’s a statistic that newsroom managers are quite sensitive about. According to the FBI, more than 50,000 American adults are missing. Almost none get the household-name status of Natalee Holloway, Laci Peterson, and Chandra Levy.
“Even if something did happen to this guy,” Noreen said, “we’re a little late in the game.”
The media, particularly 24-hour cable news networks, like to jump in early on missing person cases and ride them to their happy or unhappy endings.
Crimes that are solved immediately don’t garner the ratings that an ongoing mystery does. Anytime there’s a fresh tip on missing Iowa anchorwoman Jodi Huisentruit, the cameras swarm. And it’s been nearly fifteen years since Jodi’s red pumps were found scattered near her car after she failed to show up for her early-morning news shift.
“Any evidence of foul play with this missing groom?” Noreen pressed.
“Not so far,” I answered honestly, “but I haven’t looked yet. It does feel suspicious that this much time has passed.”
“What does your gut tell you about the bride?”
“My gut tells me the bride thinks something real bad happened.”
Madeline had sobbed, telling me her story. The dress actually had been worn, just not down the aisle. She’d waited for her betrothed, along with three hundred guests, until it became clear the nuptials were off. Because she hadn’t been married in the gown, Madeline still considered it a virgin, even if she wasn’t. She was selling the dress because she couldn’t bear to see it hanging in her closet anymore and feared her mother would explode if she simply threw it out.
“And she’ll go on camera?” Noreen asked.
“Oh yeah,” I bluffed. Actually the going-on-camera part of my discussion with Madeline remained unresolved.
By that I meant that I figured there was still a fair chance of me talking her into a television interview even though she’d already rejected the idea. She wasn’t opposed to Channel 3 investigating her fiancé’s disappearance; she just didn’t want to be included in all the lights, cameras, and action.
“Madeline wants to know what happened to Mark,” I said. “She also needs to know she did everything she could to find him. Even though you’re right, Noreen, it is a little late in the game.”
Time is everything in a missing person case. The exception being a kidnapping for ransom. Otherwise, it’s pretty much a no-brainer that the victim’s family goes public right away. The more time that passes before a break, the less likely the mystery will be solved. Of course in this case, we couldn’t even be sure we had a case.
“She better cry,” Noreen warned.
I knew she meant the bride.
I’d done enough missing person stories to know viewers need to connect with the victim and the best way to make that happen is to show a family in pain from the limbo each new day of uncertainty brings. A single tear falling down a cheek can be more visually powerful than uncontrolled sobbing. Easier to watch, too. The former can mesmerize viewers while the latter can make an audience squirm.
Some viewers cry exploitation when an interview subject breaks down on camera. What they don’t understand is that sometimes interviewees need to cry and no one else can bear to listen. Their circle of friends and family might feel uncomfortable if they get emotional and might admonish them to keep their feelings inside. Yet I’ve seen tears bring catharsis, even gratitude.
Journalists are allowed to reassure interviewees that it’s okay if they cry; we’re not allowed to tell them it’s actually better if they cry. Because if viewers care enough about the missing person, they might call in with tips that can help the investigation.
Noreen also maint
ains that tears spike the overnights.
“She’ll cry,” I assured my boss, knowing it would be tough to get a five-minute-plus block in a May newscast otherwise.
“Hmmmm.”
Noreen touched a pen to her upper lip as she contemplated a desk-calendar version of the large May strategy board—which stories were running what nights—hanging in the closed-door conference room around the corner. The board was one of the most closely guarded secrets in the newsroom; only key employees had access. This made Channel 3 less likely to be scooped by our rivals on enterprise stories.
The journalistic quality of a television news station can be judged two ways. The most obvious is how it handles the Big Story of the Day. The story everybody in town leads with. And it’s pretty easy to stack up the competition and see who landed an exclusive interview or who got the money shot or who simply beat the pants off everyone else.
Less obvious, but perhaps more telling of a station’s personality, is how it handles discretionary news. Those are stories it’s not obligated to cover but chooses to make time for anyway.
Many nights it’s insipid drivel, but occasionally a station breaks a story that brings acclaim and leaves viewers breathless. What’s difficult for die-hard newshounds to accept, is that either option—drivel or critical acclaim—can be ratings magic.
And drivel is definitely cheaper to produce.
So Noreen waved her pen like a magic wand over the half-dozen still-empty slots in May as she silently debated whether to write down NEVER WORN, the inconclusive story of a wedding dress, a reminder of heartbreak.
She tapped a Sunday in May, always an important night because the network’s blockbuster lineup leads into our newscast, giving us prime-time promotional opportunities to hold that massive audience and translate it into ratings, which translate into ad revenue.
I smiled in anticipation, welcoming the pressure, wanting to prove myself—until Noreen slammed her pen down and leaned back in her chair, her arms crossed. And just like the fabled Wicked Queen ordered the huntsman to bring back the heart of Snow White, Noreen gave me my assignment.