For Every Season...

With the season changing from Spring to Summer, the sun will shine a little longer, and bring a change in the chemistry of the newsroom. It happens almost every year in small markets: someone's contract is up, and they cast off the island, setting sail for prosperity and personal growth. I've watched it happen for the last 15 years. It's usually every member of the newsroom, save a photographer. Reporters, producers, and news directors all are in small markets for small amounts of time. It seems to represent a lot of how my life has gone. You make friends with someone, and they leave. It began in the first grade when we moved from St. Paul, Minnesota to Minneapolis. I met new people and made new friends; friends I would have until 7th grade when my dad's new job required us to pull up our upper-midwestern roots and move to the east coast. That was a rough adjustment for a pre-pubescent kid trying to find who and what he is. And since I wasn't good at writing (or calling), those friendships died on the vine. That was when I discovered a band called "Rush". I've been guided by their music, but especially by the wisdom and drumming prowess of their lyricist, Neil Peart. More on that in a later entry.

In the local news business many relationships are superficial. There's no wonder. The stories we broadcast and publish are limited to at most a minute and a half. Hardly enough time to get to know it. And that brevity comes across in the gathering process: you interview someone for the story, and when you know you have enough info to cover it, you stop. And because stations have cut back on employees, there are fewer hunter/gatherers. Hence, the name: "drive by media". Can you blame us? Some relationships run deeper, like if you work with the same people every week, you spend a lot of time in the car to and from the story, and you spend time in the newsroom and edit bay developing the story you're working on. After their inevitable departure, it would be easy for me to stop communicating. But, since technology has advanced past what George and Jane Jetson ever used, I have been able to keep many potentially dead relationships alive using just about everything we have: cell phone, texting, twittering, email, and this blog. In fact, today's technology has revived some relationships I thought were done forever. Thanks, Facebook. 

The people who leave are replaced by people you don't know, and even some people you do know. It's been said that the local news business, among others, operates in small circles. When someone leaves, you will inevitably be reunited with them. Usually at another station. Not this time. David Sawyer, who was our morning meteorologist here at WNCT, and one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet, left in 2003 for Mobile, Alabama, I think it was, and now he will be our chief weather guy starting next month. The sun will shine a little longer.