Working the Phones

Use of the telephone, the cell phone most of the time, may be the number one essential skill when it comes to making a news story materialize in the 4 or 5 hours a day we get to gather the video and sound that is needed to make good TV.

The reporter that I work with on an almost daily basis is probably the best user of Mr Edison's invention, epecially in its mobile form.

Caron Myers is constantly on the phone and although sometimes her husband may think that is a bad thing, like at lunch when it can be non-stop chatter with prospective interview subjects, her jabber into the little silver plastic talk box is the reason we hook many an interview subject.

Caron burns up the keypad on days like today with more intense furvor than usual. We were camped out at the Davidson County Governmental Center with the County Commissioners at 8 am for a resolution about a ban on gay marriage.

They got around to the subject around 9:45 and then they tabled the issue until their next meeting, but we still had a story to do for the day. And the story had to be about the Gay Marriage issue.

Caron started with some of her close friends, that just happen to be gay couples, in an attempt to get a quick interview. That search for a quick turning story turned into a bunch of phone calls and a lot of 'No Thank You's'.

We finally hit the road to Winston-Salem to interview a couple that was willing to go on camera, but not until after Caron had called just about every Gay and Lesbian contact we could think of in Davidson County.

We finished the interview with this very vocal duo around 2:40. With our eyes on a 6 o'clock live shot, we had a 25 minute drive back to the station where Caron wrote the story, I edited, and we were Live at 6 back where we started at 8 AM; In the parking lot of the County Governmental Center.