Dirty Laundry

This was my view for what seemed like most of the day. Another day trolling for a story. I've been complaining a bit (yesterday) about how difficult it is to come up with a decent story people might be interested in. Here's another day. For news stories, the last week of December has to be the driest week of the year. It seems most people are away from work either ordering a cold, fruity drink from Diego, the Caribbean bartender, or a hot, Irish drink from Lance, the bartender in the ski chalet. You either have to make something up, or you end up covering somebody's misfortune.So now, instead of doing a story on politicians mock-slicing a colorful ribbon to show off their political negotiating prowess, or doing a story on politicians bickering in the council chambers, or a story on--you get the picture. I don't want to be held responsible for your blindness after you stab out your mind's eye from these horrible descriptions.
So, while the news tree is mostly covered in snow these days, Chad Tucker and I actually had a decent story to flesh out. A guy who got hit by a car a month ago and his mother were willing to talk to us about his ordeal. Problem was, at some point that day, his health went bad to some degree, and he had to be taken back to the hospital by ambulance. We found out this fact at 5pm. At the time we were in Stanleyville, an annexed neighborhood of Winston-Salem. We were then put on another story about someone who was involved in a single car crash and died. This person also happened to be pregnant. (Jeeze, I know!) This had just happened, but it was about an hour south by High Rock Lake. So we blazed another trail.

When we got to the scene--a very dark, two-lane rural road--all we could see was vehicle stains and cat litter on the road. Clearly, this was a desperate attempt to get some more dirty laundry. A single vehicle fatal crash on a two lane rural road does not take long to clean up, and we were an hour away.
Now, we head 45 minutes northeast to get something on a guy who was hit by a car while carrying groceries on I-40. (I know, right? And when it rains, it pours. I also could hear the line in that Don Henley song "get the widow on the set, we need dirty laundry.")
We ended up just getting some video to show how bad the accident had affected traffic, then moved over to Kernersville to do a "quick package" on gas prices. The angle here is that a former oil company executive was quoted as saying something like "everyone should get ready to pay $5 a gallon by the end of next year. Apparently this little factoid is making some drivers so angry, they are weaving off the road striking people and trees. I'm kidding!

So at 9:00 we find a place to go live, Chad starts logging, and I pull cable and set up the shot. Yeah, this shot here, AND the live shot. I start editing at 9:30, feed at 9:50, and ten minutes later do that TV thing we do.
"I make my living on the evening news. Just give me something, something I can use..."