Did You Help or Were You Robbed

Thu, 11 Sep 2008 00:11:00 GMT

We are friendly people aren't we? Too friendly?

So many people come up and talk to visitors of our city they don't want to come back. It's not Atlanta's southern hospitality it's panhandling. People aggressively asking for money. The city is cracking down. Beggers getting a couple bucks could cost this city millions in conventions.

People who don't give often say it makes them feel guilty, but those who work with homeless and the working poor say the worst thing you can do is give them money. Instead of getting food or help many we're told use the money for drink or drugs, the very problems that have some of them on the streets now.

We're also told some of the people aren't homeless but "professional panhandlers" who make plenty of money, all they have to do is beg and we give.

A few months ago I was driving home after the late news. A man flagged down my car looking as if he was in a panic. He said his family was stranded in their car south of town, they were out of gas and he needed a ride to help them.

I sensed this was fishy, but I let him in the car and listened to his story.

"We ran out of gas...we're from south Georgia...no we're the other way, take this road....I have no money to fill the tank I'll need some bucks...here just drop me off here, you don't have to go all the way to the car, it's back there somewhere".

I drove him about 40 minutes and gave him about 80 bucks, all I had in my pocket. I felt like I may have been ripped off, but maybe there was a chance I'd helped so I drove home feeling good, knowing he needed the money more than I did anyway.

A month later it's midnight a man flagged down my car-same time-same street-SAME GUY with the same story and scared look on his face...I rolled the window down and the scare turned real...he started running...Honestly I yelled some things at him I won't write down but this is a good reminder.

Give money to your church, give money to homeless shelters, give money to help those who need it now more than ever. I believe we make money so we can help other people, just help the right way.

Don't feel guilty if you don't give money to the person at the end of the exit ramp with the homemade sign. The "Sucker" sign is easier to read on our foreheads than the "will work for food" sign he might have made in his house.

25 Years in the Biz Pt. 8

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 03:41:00 GMT

I hadn't heard that much cussing in my whole life (and I played football!).

"That was &*%$ FANTASTIC"! "We kicked KSN in the &%$ face and KAKE's #%$"! Stuff like that.

Steve Ramsey, the news director (boss of the news department) at KWCH always let you know what he was thinking and tonight he was happy.

My just-flew-into-town, live-on-the-set reporting went just fine. Sure, I couldn't think of the word "suspects" instead "villians" or "shooters" or "ner-do-wells" or something came out but no one else cared, we wiped out the competition on what turned out to be a national news story. The only ones with video (not much though remember). The only ones with a reporter (me with a really stupid looking mustache left over from college and a suit coat that didn't fit).

Right there in the channel 12 newsroom I saw why people LOVE this stuff. It was like winning the big game, no exageration. Adrenaline, Joy, Victory and for the night I was treated like the hero.

As if scripted, the phone rang during the celebration, "It's CBS Network, they want the story for their news tomorrow...Ted, you ever been on network news before"?

The next morning things were different (I was sick because they took me out to celebrate and I just couldn't handle that stuff...do they still even make Strohs?).

I knew the Good Lord had led me down an unexpected road, seemed crazy, no way this can work, seemed like a dead end road at the time, to the right career.

The "I can actually do this" revelation had me saying thank you prayers for months.

And instead of just being fun, it started to become a job that mattered...our news stories are other peoples life stories.  

The feeling that I was telling people about the tragic end to real human beings with loved ones who care about them, needed them, laughed with them, got mad at them, played with them, waited for them to come home that day........

sticks with me today.

tbc 

25 Years in the Biz Pt. 7

Tue, 09 Sep 2008 23:46:00 GMT

The 3 seat prop plane rocked in the wind, the engine roared, I was cramped in the back, it was dark except for the dim lights of the instrument panel.

At least I didn't get sick. I could have.....

Back on the ground at the small airstrip in Colby, Kansas Lesa must have been fuming. A friend was dead in a shooting that she uncovered, but I (nothing but her dinner date earlier in the evening) was the one on the way to Wichita to report on it live on the late news. I'm still not sure why they asked for me and if she was fuming she never let me know it.

News is a strange beast. We basically just tell people what's going on in their neighborhood, sometimes it's bad, far too often it's bad. The story I was tasked with delivering that night was very bad.

A group from Michigan looking for money robbed, shot and killed a Stuckey's employee. They were pulled over for speeding, they shot the cop when he came up to their car, they then executed the farmers to block the road. One of the bad guys was killed in a shootout with police.  

This story was so big, the CBS affiliate chartered a plane to beat their competition.

An hour later, the plane landed. I had the video tape in my hand and that's it. No pen, no notebook, no suit coat, just jeans and a short sleeve shirt (I wasn't supposed to be working that night) and about 40 minutes until the 10:00 news on KWCH. It's fair to say the driver broke some laws to get from the airport to the TV station.

"What do you guys want me to do"?

"Just tell the story".

(how do you do that? I was 21 with almost no training)

4 minutes until the news. 

The rest is scrambled, someone took the tape, someone handed me a suitcoat, someone took me to the set (Wow, Roger Cornish...this is Susan Peters chair). News intro,  Cornish says "Ted what happened"?

tbc

25 Years in the Biz Pt. 6

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 22:39:00 GMT

It was a Christmas Tree, in my otherwise empty-single guy-basement apartment, and I hadn't put it there. The note said Merry Christmas from the Christmas Tree Phantom or something like that.

Over a plate of cookies, the lady I rented from eventually told me who snuck it in and said "I think she must like you".

I knew it. Sure for some reason she thought I was conceited (can you believe it?), thought I looked dumb with that big comb always sticking out my back pocket, but really, conceited and dumb? that's a combination that's hard to resist.

Lesa and I went to the station Christmas party together- essentially our first date. People talked but we didn't care. She was a farmer/truck drivers daughter with a wonderful family. We anchored the news together, did commercials on the radio together, and were about to go out on a Valentines date when she heard something over the police scanner.

She said it sounded like a cop saying he'd been shot. Here? How could that happen here? Can't be.

We decided we'd drive past and check it out on our way to dinner. We didn't eat until the next day.

There was blood on the glass of the broken door at the Levant grain elevator. A grain elevator is a place farmers come to sell their crop, or chat over coffee. The people inside had looks on their faces I had never seen before. They had watched 2 of their farmer friends shot and kidnapped just moments before.

The cop on the scanner actually had been shot. The people who did it grabbed the famers so they could kill them and lay them out on the highway so police would have to stop, giving them a chance to get away.

The bloody trail these outsiders from up north left permanently stained the innocence of western Kansas.

4  people shot. 3 killed. In this small community it seemed each victim was family or a friend.

Lesa was emotional, one victim was a good friend. I had no experience in covering a crime wave, so we ended up with some poor journalism. Very little video, no interviews, we were to busy personally talking to the people who had been ravaged by strangers to think of sticking a camera and microphone in their faces.

But the network would want our story, even bigger, so would KWCH-TV.

tbc

25 Years in the Biz Pt. 5

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 01:45:00 GMT

It was the part in the movie "The Natural" that Robert Redford and his bat rocket the ball high into the stadium lights...flashes, sparks...then black.

The guy working at the single screen movie theater in Goodland had shut the projector off. He said..."everyone has to leave, we've got tornados".

The dozen or so people slowly walked toward the light of the lobby that came from the late afternoon sun coming through the huge picture windows that looked out on Main Street.

We left one movie to walk right into another.

We saw Twister a decade before it was made. Right there in the window was a tall, snaking tornado just on the outskirts of town and in a small town like this.... it was close.

Did people run and scream? No...not Kansans. They could tell it wasn't rushing at us so they walked to their cars in an orderly fashion (what me hurry?) to get home and set up for a  night like many others there.

A dozen twisters hit around Goodland that night.

Tornado chasing wasn't some heart stopping Discovery Channel documentary, it was SOP. (Months later I was forgiven for wrecking the station 4WD because we almost got shots of a twister)  

That night we got video of a thick one, maybe 1/2 mile wide, but you could only see it during flashes of lightening. Not much use to us so we put the tape on a bus for Wichita (remember it's 1984). KWCH-TV had fancy, futuristic equipment like slo-mo video machines so they grabbed some great still and slow shots. And thanks to that wonderful 1980's technology we were able to put them on the air just a few short DAYS later!(....KWCH, must be paradise...)

Interested in getting into TV news? If I might make a suggestion, start small, you will be a better anchor if you've reported, produced and shot. You'll be a better producer if you've anchored, reported and shot.

But be ready to work hard (and chase dangerous weather). 6 day work weeks are an easy week, unlimited hours each day, unlimited duties, unlimited experience.

And the co-workers can be alright, except for that know-it-all, fresh out of Kansas State, agriculture-reporter we hired that August. A real pain in the neck. We got married the next August.

tbc