A guy driving a stolen car decides it’s a good idea to ram a police car, wreck the car he’s driving and run off into a neighborhood. The police set up a search perimeter using cops on foot, dogs and a helicopter.
I’m sent out the door as soon as I get to work. I load into a live truck and head out with my reporter, Max. We arrive on location where the guy drove his stolen car into the front end of an SUV. I hop out of the truck and get different shots of the scene: the cars, the cops talking to each other, a witness talking to cops, the helicopter circling overhead, and a bunch of other stuff that captures the essence of what’s going on.
In the meantime Max talks to the police and gets the basics of what happened.
Next, I’ve got to set up the truck for a live shot. I dial in with the station, edit some video and we do our first live shot. Nothing special about it. Max gives a quick rundown of how everything happened and I provide the live pictures.
We have another live shot scheduled in about half an hour. I take that time to untangle some cables, edit some more video and change batteries on my camera. So far this is all very ordinary. It’s a little rushed but really nothing unique has happened to make this day any more memorable than any other day.
About five minutes before our live report, word gets to us that the suspect has been caught. I’m not sure what this means as far as video opportunities go, but at least we have new information for our live shot.
Max asks the police representative for a live interview and she walks over and waits with us. I listen in my earpiece as the producer is giving us a ‘standby’ cue. A reporter for another station who has the reputation for being loud starts to yell at his photographer. “GET OVER HERE…..JERRY GET OVER HERE NOW…THERE HE IS”.
“You’re hot” comes through my earpiece – I know our producer doesn’t find me attractive so that means we are now broadcasting live for everyone to see.
Damn!! Finally something good is going to happen and I’m stuck across the street doing a live shot. Max starts speaking and I open my other eye and take a peek at what's happening. I can see a commotion going on next to an apartment building. I see photographers from the other stations scramble over there to where the police are escorting our guy in handcuffs.
I zoom in, expecting to have a bunch of people blocking my shot. But no one does. I have a great, clear shot of baldy being taken to the police cruiser. It’s a nice long walk, so obviously I have a nice long shot.
During all this, Max is getting all the new information from the cops.
Dude is put in the cruiser and as they drive off, I’m able to walk into the street and get a great picture of him in the back seat. I move back to Max and he finishes his live interview.
Timing like this almost never happens in live news. You can work for decades in this industry and never have anything interesting occur during a live broadcast. So even though I couldn’t walk right in front of the guy, we kicked all kinds of butt for visual storytelling.
I was just real happy with our lucky timing. But when we got back to the station later, everyone walked over and congratulated on how well we did and how great everything looked. The GM made a point to come into the newsroom and do the same. I was gracious and thanked everyone but I had a hard time taking credit for something that, when it comes down to it, was just plain old dumb luck. An accidental discovery, so to speak.
