Trivia: What's Wrong With This?

Incident: Two officers shot, one suspect dead, one very complicated story. All stations respond to the scene, two stations hold over crews and respond to the hospital.

Police Reaction: Sheriff holds a press conference at the hospital, whre most of the media is not, and does not tell anyone.

Result: Two stations that held over their nightside crews get sound with the sheriff, two other stations that have AM crews coming in early, but haven't arrived yet miss it.

Continuation: Police department says that they will not give any more interviews, PIO says it's not his job to rush out and tell the media the sheriff is giving sound at a different location, PIO goes home. Two stations forced to go on air with unconfirmed witness statements.

End Result: ewink REALLY FUCKING PISSED!

So am I the only one who thought it's slightly bull-shit for the police to have screwed us over like this? In fact, the PIO that was at the scene said to me "When we're at an active crime scene like this, I don't have the time to run out and tell you every little detail." When questioned why he did not tell us the sheriff was at the hospital.

Last time I checked, that was the only purpose of the PIO at a crime scene. To funnel us information.

Whatever.

Sgt. Wholley from Traffic who I do my live shot with on Wednesdays is lucky I don't consider him METRO, other wise he'd be in for an earful.

RIP Friskey...

Sad news to report. Back in Illinois, my faithful old kitty, Friskey, passed away Wednesday morning. If my memory serves me right, he was 18 years old, give or take a year or two. Long time for a cat to live. But that can be attributed to my dad who treats his animals like they were kids. Kids he likes...

I found Friskey when I was nothing more than a wee lad. He was meowing at me out in the bushes. I brought him inside and from then on out, we had a grand old time together, even during the stage in my life when I played a little rough with him.

He was a good cat, and will be missed. I can't seem to find my picture of him, but when I do it will be posted.

Bye bye, Frisk. Hope they have tasty chipmunks for you up in kitty heaven!

Calling The Station Checklist...

To help people who call television stations to complain about various things or that have story ideas, please familiarize yourself with the following in order to expedite the resolution of your grievance/idea/suggestion:

• Make sure what you are calling about actually aired on the station you are calling. If you want to know about something that aired on Contact 13, and you call Channel 8, you're not going to get anywhere fast.


• On a related note, just because we call come out of the same TV set does not mean we all come from the same building.


• Please know what the hell you are talking about before you call.


• Do not call with something generic like 'I'm want to know information about that story you did about the doctor, yesterday, in the news.' We had about 8 hours worth of news yesterday. I need something more specific in order to find it.


• I cannot give you a copy of the script. Sorry. You're going to have to order the story from the recording service. I'll give you all the info in the script, but I will not print you a copy. Not because I don't want to, but because I am pretty sure I can't.


• On a related note, no, you may not get a copy of our raw tape.


• Commercials are not news. Do not call the newsroom to ask about a commercial. We don't have a clue. (Call M-F 9-5 and ask for traffic. Not Skywitness Traffic, just traffic.)


• The schmuck answering the phone, 99.99999% of the time, had absolutely nothing to do with the story you are calling to complain about. Please save your hate filled rant for the person who does.


• Do not call and ask to talk to a reporter at 2AM.


• If you do, I reserve the right to forward you to a random reporters voice mail. If you call back, I'll just do it again.


• I am sorry your dog/cat/car is missing/stolen, but no, we will not put in on the news. Do you have any clue how many dogs/cats/cars go missing/stolen every day in this city? It's a lot!


• Similarly, we only do missing person stories when the cops ask us to. We don't know what your interest in the missing kid/person is, and we will not help a stalker find his prey. Ask the police to call us. They will be happy to.


• Three police cars do not qualify as 'a ton of cops.'


• Shots fired /= a shooting.


• Burglary /= Robbery.


• Losing all your money at a casino /= theft.


• If no one died, no kids or seniors are involved and it's not part of a greater story, we did not cover it, nor will we. (This is subject to change based on the moon's orbit and the distance to sweeps.)


• Managers don't work weekends. There is a reason they become managers, and it's not to hang around the station on a Saturday evening.


• If the power is out, call the power company and then call the news. They can probably tell you more than we can, considering we ask the same people.


• We don't cover suicides. That's why you didn't see anything about it.


• 99.9999999% of the stuff that is not local was not covered by us. Please take your complaint to the network.


• I do not know Katie Couric's phone number.


• I will not give you the phone number to another station.


• 411 is 4 digits easier to dial than the newsroom, will get you the number faster and will not get you on my shitlist.


• tvguide.com knows more about our stations lineup then I do. Check it first.


• I will try and help you out as much as you can, but just because I work for a TV station does not mean that I know everything and that I can answer any question for you instantly. Most of the time I use Google. You should try it too!


• I call and confirm news tips with the police before I go to a scene. Don't bother prank calling me. I have caller ID.


• If you call with a great story idea, but then refuse to go on camera/speak with someone off camera (or in silhouette)/at least give your name, the story will probably never see the light of day, and I will be very frustrated.


• If the story doesn't involve more than just you, it better be good.


• I reserve the right to add more things as more people call with just plain silly issues.

Thank you for your time.

As Weekends Go...

Last one was pretty freakin' cool. Got two stories coming for you soon! Camp Judson and 40 Minutes, 4 Shootings! wOOt!

She's Dead, Jim... REVISED!

Nothing can ever prepare you for this day... Waking up and walking into a room to find the one you love almost more than anything else, dead. Staring at you with a lifeless glare... Sure, they're making some sounds, but nothing like they did when they were alive and full of spunk.

I had to deal with that today...

My beloved Mai, I shared with you all her birth a mere two years ago. I awoke and came into my dining room to find that she had rebooted, and was stuck on a boot screen. I panicked and reset her, but she just stopped at pretty much the first step in the boot process. I worked feverishly for over an hour trying to fix her, but alas, it was futile.

Left with no other choice, I called it and shut down her power supply at 10:45 AM. An autopsy will be performed to determine what exactly happened to her. Hopefully the problem is something simple, so that her replacement will be able to make use of most of her parts. They way it's looking, it's her brain that failed. A total CPU failure. Surprising, considering that the CPU fan still works, but then again I do play a lot of CPU intense games.

At any rate, my trusty Sarah - my laptop - is my only connection to the outside world right now. Despite the sadness, some good will come from this. Till I can afford a new CPU, I will possible actually get some non-computer related productivity done. (HA!)

I now as for a moment of silence. Thank you.

UPDATE!

After deciding to go back and troubleshoot some more, I have determined that it was not my CPU, but an older 512MB stick of RAM that was the issue! This is both good and bad. It's good because it means I can get the computer to work, as all I needed to do was remove the faulty SIMM, but it's bad as RAM (especially RAM they don't make anymore) is actually more expensive than a CPU would be.

Will have to shop around, but will probably get 1GB from newegg.com.

Miscellaneous Tuesday Morning Photoging

I am well aware it's Thursday. I was going to do this on Tuesday before I went to bed, but various shananagins kept that from happening.

Anyway, the most interesting (and least frustrating) day of the week had to have been Tuesday. I love it when stuff starts as soon as I do. Good sign the shift will be busy, which makes me a happy panda.

First, there was a homicide up in North Las Vegas. I headed up there and everyone was already there. However, since being last on the scene will only kill you if you miss something (and I didn't, since homicides don't go anywhere) there was no harm and no foul.

The intra-photog discussion became interesting though. I was abruptly ended though when I declared that I did not find a topless woman that interesting (being as I like a girl with a fine booty over boobies). I was labeled as gay and we went our separate ways.

Well, not completely separate.

John and I both were assigned to go to New York New York casino. In honor of the NBA All-Star game this weekend, they were putting a giant NBA jersey on the Statue of Liberty. Since we both had to go, we followed each other in a parade (well, I guess it's not a parade when there are only two cars) of white Explorers (mine is actually a Mountaineer) down the free way and to the Tropicana. There we parked and set up on a pedestrain overpass that gave us a great view of the event!

Of course it didn't happen on time, so for an hour we stood there, being harassed every 2 minutes by drunks wanting to know what was going on. A couple of videographers with tiny cameras came up and demanded to know who we were with. John was a little less obvious, but the large CHANNEL 8 EYEWITNESS NEWS logo plastered on the back of my blue and black jacket should have given it away.

They were concerned that we were the 'competition', although they never told us who they were, so even if we were, we wouldn't have known it. One throughly inspected John's ID badge. I was hoping he would come up and touch mine so I could knock his dumb ass right off the bridge. (Note to potential touchers - if I don't know you, and you are not a girl, you will be hit. I do not get touched by strangers.)

John's actually better than I am. He chatted with the drunks and joked with them. But I really, really don't like them. People who pester other people while they are working really irk me. I just want to beat them with a stick yelling "YOU WANNA KNOW WHAT HAPPENED?!?! WATCH IT ON THE GODDAMNED NEWS!!!!!!!" Of course I'm a nice person, so I don't, legal ramifications aside.

After that was over with, I zipped back to the station and edited a couple of VOs. Did some station stuff and then was assigned to go to the convention center.

I would normally protest, as I hate going there especially when there is a big ass convention going on (MAGIC - a California fashion convention). But the story was too good to whine about. Homer Simpson and the Simpson's showgirls (whatever those are) were going to be passing out doughnuts in honor of some clothing thing, the 400th episode coming this spring, and the movie!

Yipee! Simpsons! I ran right over there and got into place at the taxi stand. 7:30 was when it was going to start.

Come 8AM I got concerned. I checked the release and made sure I was in the right place. I called the PR hack who set things up.

"Oh yeah, it got moved to the Rivera and set back to 9:30, your time."

Well first, why would you tell me when a local even was going to happen in any other time other than mine? And second, WHY THE HELL DIDN'T YOU CALL AND TELL US IT WAS MOVED?!?!

This is NOT how you run a PR firm.

Regardless, I sulked back to my car, unhappy I was going to have to deal with this massive cluster fuck of traffic for nothing. But then I passed a sign. The one on the left. I immediately took back my comments form earlier that night about topless women not being interesting and went home to 'inspect' the picture further.

Of course then John calls, and being the asshat that he is, tells me that he went and had breakfast with five girls from the NBA All-Star dance squad that he had a live shot with earlier. I continue with my assertion that John sucks. I also assert that the PR dude sucks twice as hard because if he had called with the change, I could have went with John and the dance girls!

Of course I knew Wednesday was going to be trouble, seeing how craptastic Tuesday ended. It was, but this one post is boring enough.

They Ain't All Murder Victims...

From one of the ambulance company's main dispatch channel around 3:00AM...

Dispatcher: 850; Take a code three in 2617. Man down behind the business in a sleeping bag, unknown reason. Responding with Rescue XX and METRO.
Ambulance Crew: Seems like the sleeping bad would take care of that unknown reason issue...
Dispatcher: ...

Who says paramedics don't have a sense of humor.

The Definition of Disappointment...

Going to The Orleans to see 'Letters From Iwo Jima' (awesome movie, by the way), learning that there is some sort of cheerleading competition going on there. And then finding out that it's a 'Pop Warner' league of cheerleaders, none of them over 12...

Incredibly disappointing.

Breaking News Outta Cleveland!

WKYC photojournalist Craig Roberson was attacked by the Cleveland police department while doing a story where he was invited into a mall. The officer pictured on the left ((thanks WKYC for the hotlink!)) who looks a lot like the janitor from Scrubs, demanded to know who gave Craig permission to videotape the policemen.

He then forced the camera to the ground, injuring Craig's arm in the process. Here's the story.

As a little bit of education, let me explain the truth of the matter to the Cleveland Police. First off, when in public, no person has any reasonable expectation of privacy; therefore all are subject to being videotaped. Your badge does NOT exempt you from that rule. In fact, the only thing the badge seems to exempt you from is getting arrested, since anyone else who battered someone in a public place would have been arrested.

Cops have it sweet when it comes to this. The cops shoot and kill someone in self defense, they get two days off and any other time off is spent at home. They get the benefit of a doubt. A civilian shoots and kills someone in self defenses, they spend hours being grilled by homicide detectives and must do all in their power to convince them that it really was self defense. If I came up and twisted a cops arm because I didn't like the fact he was looking at me, 10 other cops would arrive to beat me to within an inch of my life. But a cop can do it to me, and if I even think of fighting back, I would again be beaten senseless.

Anyway, the point of the matter is just leave the media alone and they will leave YOU alone. In fact it looks like Craig's story was actually in CPD's favor! Way to ruin the story, you ignorant asshat.

Constructive Days Off?

We'll see, but right now I have plans to do some constructive things on my days off!

Although 'constructive' is a subjective term.

First order of business is to reorganize my computer area. It's a total cluster fuck right now. Second, I will be scanning all my photos and putting them into a Flickr account. Soon you will be able to see how 'cool' I used to be! (Again, another subjective term.)

Third, I will figure out why Vegas doesn't install right so that Tony will be able to come over and edit his video. Fourth I will figure out someway to get the fire-wire that I apparently have to work so that I can connect my XDCAM to my computer! I can finally start putting up illegally obtained video captures from stuff I shoot*!

Fifth, I am planning on pulling cable into my bedroom so that I am not just paying for TiVo and an extra cable box but not using them. Sixth, I am considering investing in a 7.1 surround system for my computer. I will shop around for the best price! Seventh, I will get some writing done, particularly on my fan-fic.

Eighth, I will actually remember to mail my movies back, so I can get more. Damn you Netflix and your rules... Ninth, I will come up with a 10th thing to do.

If I actually get two of these things done, I will be astonished.

*All video clips are actually used in accordance with the Fair Use provisions of US copyright law. Neener.

Central IL in the Hizzie!

A photog blog for people to check out, The "Fauged" Lens By Lou Faugerburg. Read it!

It's Getting Warmer!

That's good for me cause now stuff is happening! I was called at 11PM to head out to an undisclosed suburb of Las Vegas that shall remain nameless but isn't Boulder City or Northtown for nothing. After that our usual 2AM coffee break was cut short by a roll over with ejection that shut down I-15, followed by shananagins in Northtown (that actually was nothing). After that there was another crash on the 15 where a beer truck rolled over, farking with the morning commute!

Then the day was topped off with court. It was the first non-appearance for some biznatch that is in a coma.

It's good to have stuff happening again. I was getting cabin fever!

ATTN Police PIOs and Wannabe PIOs

The decision of whether or not something is 'nothing' or not is not yours to make!

If all the news stations in a city are on a scene, then it's officially lost it's 'nothing' designation. And trust me, we're the laziest four photographers ever created, so we're not going to go somewhere if we don't think there is something to it!

For the sake of not being tattled on, I won't disclose which police department I HaPpen to be Directing this to.

To be fair, I did not hear the comment that it was nothing, it was second hand. But it was a trusty second hand that might slap me at Starbucks tonight.

((For the record, nothing happened to include 8 police vehicles at one business, 3 in an alleyway, 3 others on a roadway, a section of the roadway shut down and police keeping people from going into their houses. Regardless of the cause, or the mediocrity of the crime, the very fact that people were prevented from moving about freely places this as a news story. Your opinion is moot. Of course the whole issue would be moot if your patrol officers/sergeants/lieutenants would speak to the media about on going events... We're not al-Qaeda. We're not out to blow you up or eat your souls. We just want the info so we can properly inform the people who would like to know why they couldn't go home.))

A Song About Ewink...

Kinda... :)

Why I Hate Society...

It's not just because 9/11 has turned a whole lot of Americans and American law enforcement into total freakin' retards as demonstrated in Boston earlier this week. It's also because there are people in our society like the one I am going to tell you about.

Last night, North Las Vegas police responded to reports of a man down in the street on North Las Vegas Blvd. near Lake Mead Blvd. When they arrived they found a man dead. It was quickly determined that this man was killed in an AutoPed (automobile vs. pedestrian crash).

The thing is, the car that hit him left the scene. The only person to report it was some dude who just happened to be trolling by. It's unknown how long this man lay dying in the street before he was found.

What kind of person hits another human being and then just leaves them in the street to die? How much of a fucking asshole do you have to be to not even give a flying fuck about this man's life like that? This guy did nothing to the person who hit him. He was just minding his own business, crossing the street (in a marked cross walk I might add) and this (probably drunk) son of a bitch plows him over and continues on about his business like he hit a bird or ran over a pile of trash.

I know he won't read this, but I have a message for this guy. Sir, I hope that you die. I really do. And I hope when you die, no one cares and you are left to rot like you left this man too. I hope your death is slow and agonizing and if there is a God and if there is any sense of justice in the world, I hope it happens soon.

I have absolutely no compassion or caring for someone who cares so little about other people. I know this is out of character for me, but I am quite frankly pissed off to even think I can occupy the same planet with someone like this guy. I went to two of these on the same night back in Novemberish and it just made me incredibly angry. I don't know the people who died, but I feel so bad for their family and their friends, mostly because they have to know that their loved one was just left for dead on the cold concrete.

I see people who were killed in car crashes on a semi-regular basis and while it's sad, it doesn't make me angry like this. This - not giving a damn about anyone or anything but saving their own evil hides - just really kills all the good aspects of me and really makes me wish for some sort of mass disaster that would cleanse the planet of people like this.

But since we all know that the world is such a fucked up place, bad things only happen to good people. So people like this shitbag would some how be spared, while those who seek to better the lives of others would be killed.

Though I doubt it would help, if you happened to be in the area of Las Vegas Blvd and Lake Mead Saturday night - Sunday morning between midnight and 2:30 and you think you might have seen a red car that had front end damage, give NLV Police a call at 702-385-5555.

I promise tomorrow I will return to my normal, not so spiteful self.

Tales of a Red Curb...

So I'm sitting at the station, waiting for lunchtime to roll around while trolling the 15 internet sites not blocked by the corporate web filter when I hear a train versus a pedestrian go out in North Las Vegas.

"Holy Christ on a pogo stick!" I shout to the no one else in the building. I bolt out the door and tear out of the parking lot only to hear the officer on scene say "The victim just came up to us and said the train didn't hit him. The engineer is pretty sure he did, but the victim swears that he didn't, so I'll be clear."

After wondering why the train guy would dispute whether or not he hit the guy after the guy walked up without a scratch on him, I returned to the station and took my parking spot along the side of the building; which has a red curb.

Now, the station has been angry about photogs parking there lately. During the day, if all the photogs are at the station, there aren't enough parking spots along the fences for the live trucks and the Mountaineers. I park there at night because I'm lazy and there is no one else there to bitch at me. But during the day, with the Mountaineers parked there the live trucks (which have the turning radius of a small oil tanker) are unable to back out. So the powers that be issued a decree that no one is allowed to park there anymore.

To further amplify this decree the curb was painted red (although it might have always been painted red. I really don't pay any attention) and a no parking sign was attached to the side of the building.

Why is this worth mentioning?

Because the no parking sign looks like this:


Don't get it?

The cars that will be towed are owned by the station. So if the station tows a car at owners expense, then the station will have to pay to have the car recovered.

Erin pauses...

Well, I thought it was funny, and as tragically slow (or wonderfully slow, depending on if you are looking at it from my point of view or from the people who are still alive's point of view) as it's been, this is the best you're going to get.

Here's the deal...

Why have I not been blogging, you might ask. Well, the answer is simple. I've had nothing to blog about.

Believe this or not, but in the last three weeks I think I have shot four (spot news) stories. Fatal autoped, robbery suspects being apprehended, double fatal fire and probably another crash. Oh, and a dumbass water main break, but that doesn't count as spot news.

It's been so slow and quiet I've been tempted to leave my camera at home, since if I did that and drove across town something surely would happen!

To my fellow photogs who might be daysiders/nightsiders, and who might be a little angry at my lack of work (since you guys are still shooting multiple VOSOTS and packs), always remember this. You guys miss something, it's the desk who fucked up. I miss something, it's all on me. So even with the quiet times, I cannot drift away, as stuff still happens, and I am sure it will happen at very inopportune times.

Although I am sure there is photog stuff that I could blog about, but I will be honest with you. Since my scolding I've been a little worried about angering the newsroom gods. So expect the occasional blahness from time to time, since that is the nature of the beast, when all you shoot is unexpected happenings.