I hate it when I get like this. It's nothing I can define outside of "uninspired." Even that isn't entirely true. The best word is "blank." I am 100% blank right now. It's one of those times where just about nothing sounds like fun and all my normal distractions (movies, books, poker, music, etc) lose their luster way too quickly.

If I were to write right now, it would be about the following things.

Sixty seconds away from my brother's house in the tony community of Kirkwood, Missouri, a guy walked in to a city council meeting and started killing peoople. Before he was done, he had shot seven people, killing two police officers, as well as some city council members and other members of city government. A reporter and the mayor of the city were also shot. At the very same time this was happening, a sugar refinery not too far from here in Savannah, Georgia blew up. At the time, the casualty numbers seemed astounding. I started flipping between every major cable news network. Here's a rundown of what they were showing:

FOX News: Britney Spears coverage
CNN: Britney Spears coverage
MSNBC: A pre-packaged hour-long bio on Hillary Clinton (funny enough, the DirecTV guide showed the program listing as "The Mind of Manson.")

I mean...come on.

I'm not a big Phish disciple, but I found this article absolutely fascinating. Probably something about being an aging husband and father with a wild and crazy history. Via Coventry.

My friend E asked me to write a guest post for her professional blog. She's a political reporter out of Austin who is getting ready to see the onslaught of national media and candidates in Texas. She asked for some advice she can pass along to her colleagues. My only regret is the censors cut out the only really funny thing I put in there. It involved the word genitalia. Regardless, you can find it HERE

Finally...the other day, I was perusing plastic surgery websites in preparation for a rant about the industry. I came across a doctor who specialized in...wait for it...vaginal reconstruction. I suppose I should've assumed there would be such an area of expertise. I didn't realize, however, how popular a surgery it is. Among the specialities within the specialties is labiaplasty. I'll admit, I looked at pictures, because...well, really, who doesn't want to see before and after images? Let me warn you. This is absolutely Not Safe For Work. Do not open this link if anyone else is around. I feel a little weird linking it at all. However, science is involved and I think we can all stand a little enlightenment. NSFW.

Yeah...let that carry you through the weekend.

Labels: Crime, Health, Music, TV News

Let's forget for a moment that one of the most important elections in our lifetime is eleven months away. Let's forget that the amount of money being spent on the campaigns could feed the homeless for untold months. Let's even forget whether we are Republicans, Democrats, Independents, or from Bob Jones University. Let's just ask ourselves for one moment, "What the Huck is going on?"

I'm no expert on the subject of media manipulation, but I have some history in its analysis. As you might know, the biggest television honor I ever received during my time in the business was a Best of Show at the National Headliner Awards. During that time, I spent more than a few hours talking with the people who make it their jobs to manipulate what you see and hear on television during campaign seasons. These people are exceedingly smart when it comes to understanding how to twist the common mind into believing something that either isn't necessarily true or needs a lot of reaffirmation. I usually started my analysis with the belief that the people behind the campaigns were full of hooey and worked up from there.

The most fun of the entire gig was not the wide recognition or appreciation for the work, but the daily battles with the people in campaigns that you never see--the producers, the fixers, the managers. They are professional manipulators and watching them work is a thing of sick beauty. They know how to manipulate the public. They know how to manipulate reporters. They even know how to manipulate other campaigns. It's game theory, politics, and war wrapped into one overwrought mind.

That is a very long way of saying that what you see on the web, on TV, and--if you still actually read one--in newspapers is more often than not the product of someone with an agenda sitting in the war room of a campaign office. While I don't pretend to know much of anything of substance about this current election, I do know what to watch out for in terms of plants, misinformation, and trickery. At times it makes me feel like a fruitcake conspiracy theorist. Thing is, that's all campaigns really are. They are one big conspiracy designed to get their candidate in office.

Here are a few fun things to munch on.

E.F Hutton and the Clinton campaign response--When Bill Shaheen speaks, he doesn't do it lightly. When he speaks to the Washington Post and makes comments about Barak Obama's drug use, it is no accident. Shaheen has been a major player in this business longer than most reporters have known what a Democrat is. Most people would have us believe Shaheen's comments were offered without the full knowledge that he would soon be removed from the Clinton campaign, that they were remarks made unilaterally. If it had been a twenty-something campaign staffer who said it, I might be inclined to believe it was a simple mistake. Bill Shaheen, however? No way. Here's the fun part: Because it was Shaheen and because he is no longer with the campaign, the story has twice the legs it did before. What might have been an up and down story is now more than a week old, and nearly every account includes mention of Obama's teenage drug use. Even this one. Well played, folks.

Huckabee? Really?--In one month, the former Arkansas Governor came back from a nearly 20-point deficit in national Republican polls to tie Rudy Giuliani for the horse race lead. From this we can learn two things. First, polls are, by and large, worthless. John Edwards could announce today that he cured cancer in his basement and not make up an 18 point deficit in the polls. For Huckabee to rise that fast means something is going on and it ain't Huckabee on his own. Second, Huckabee is capital P perfect for both the Democrats and Republicans. He is an evangelical Christian who once hinted that AIDS patients should be quarantined. Democrats are banking on the hopes that America won't elect another evangelical to the Presidency. Republicans--especially the ones like Divorced Rudy Giuliani and Mormon Mitt Romney--need a "hey, look over there!" guy. Enter Huckabee. When people refer to a meteoric rise, they often forget to mention that the end of a meteor's rise is a quick descent. Thanks for playing your part, Huck. I'm sure there will be a good ambassadorship available to you in a year or so.

It was a book shelf!-- My goodness, I love this Huckabee campaign ad. It is everything and nothing in one ad buy. It gives Huck a chance to talk about how he's not like the other guys and how he loves God. Further, it gives the libs a chance to laugh what looks like a floating cross in the background. Huckabee half-heartedly protests that the cross is actually a book shelf. Even better, that's the truth. But please. Please. Unless you are John Edwards and buying ads in South Carolina, you are spending massive amounts of money to produce and distribute campaign ads. Like I mentioned above, there are no mistakes. Now, with demo-pundits making asses of themselves for insulting religion and Huckabee putting it all out there, nobody gets to win, except maybe the people who are getting paid to produce the ads in the first place.

Edwards' love monkey-- I've spent the past 12 hours or so trying to figure out the motivation for the hit piece in the Enquirer about John Edwards' alleged love child. His candidacy doesn't pose much of a threat to anybody as far as I can determine. Maybe it is just The Enquirer being the Enquirer. Any thoughts?

Labels: Advertising, Barak Obama, Elections, John Edwards, Mike Huckabee, Politics, Rudy Giuliani, TV News

There have been few people in my career who I actually set out to impress. There have been few people who have actually given me chances I didn't deserve. There have been fewer still I looked up to like a father, but was still able to consider a friend. Andy Still is all of those people.

Andy was my boss from 1999 until early 2005. We parted ways amicably when I discovered a new direction and golden parachute. Since then, I've been able to watch Andy's work from a safe distance and wished for him a graceful exit whenever he chose.



Last night, the wife and I went to Andy's retirement party, a real-life "This Is Your Life" for him--and, frankly, us, too. Andy is giving up his role as News Director and heading off to a life of music, writing, and travel. All of it is more than deserved.

There are so many things that are wrong with television news these days. Anymore, it is a place where mediocrity isn't merely accepted, it's almost championed. Andy and the people who worked on his staff didn't believe in that. Andy and the people he trusted really believed in capital "N" News. The business wasn't all about money, how fat you were, or how good looking you could be. The business was telling stories. It was about giving people the news they needed in a way they could understand. If you entertained them along the way, even better.

I have many a rant on this subject, but those will have to wait for another day. Today is the day we recognize Andy's last hours on the job. If you have ever wanted to believe in the profession of journalism or wondered who among the fourth estate you could trust, Andy is your man. And, as we all agreed last night, Andy is more than just a newsman. He is simply a fine human being.

Congrats on a great career, Boss. More than that, thank you for giving us a reason to believe.

Labels: TV News

Six years ago, I did my job as a journalist. I worked a story hard. I was proud of myself. In the time since then, my life has changed so many times and in so many wonderful ways that I can't count them all.

In that same time, Charles Wakefield has stayed in prison, a place he has been for the better part of my life. Whether he would've stayed there may have not had anything to do with what I did, but, in my heart, I know I played a part in it.

In that same time, I have learned a lot more about Wakefield and how he ended up in prison in the first place. I have learned so much that I don't dare even start writing it here, because, if I do, this blog would be about nothing else.

In that same time, I have tried to atone for my youthful and naive exuberance as a news guy. Still, I have not ever come close to doing what I really need to do. I'm not even sure I ever can.

For now, I can only offer this:

I'm sorry, Charles.

Labels: TV News

I have never written about this.

It was 2003. I was returning from North Carolina. It had been an exhilarating trip. Eric Robert Rudolph had just been captured and I was one of the reporters sitting in the courtroom as he was formally read the charges against him. I enjoyed little more than a good manhunt and that day in Asheville had been the culmination of the pursuit to end all pursuits.

There are few more enjoyable short trips than the one between Asheville, North Carolina and Greenville, South Carolina. It was late Spring and the mountains were as lush as they would be all year long. There is a dead spot for nearly all cell phone signals and, for just a few precious moments, you can escape the constant demands of work and life. By the time you break the city limits of the aptly-named Travelers Rest, you're back in the real world.

That was when my cell phone rang. The tone in my wife's voice indicated something was very wrong.

***

For those of you who don't know, my wife and I used to work together. She was a TV news producer. I was a field reporter. We were an anomaly in the corporate culture--a married couple working for the no-no-on-nepotism Hearst-Argyle Television. We'd been grandfathered in when the no-nepo rules kicked off. Most people handled it pretty well. Some people did not. We didn't let it bother us. We considered ourselves professionals. We worked to actually be harder on each other than we would be on other people we worked with. It actually hurt our relationship sometimes. Regardless, our work situation meant we worked in close quarters and often meant we were discussing news stories in front of our co-workers.

One morning we got a visit from our local police Public Information Officer. We were friendly with the guy. I was the cop shop reporter and talked to the PIO every day. My wife talked to him almost as often. We were friendly enough that, rather than force me to drive down to the police station to pick up mug shots and arrest warrants, the PIO would occasionally drop them by.

A few days before I got sent on the road to chase Rudolph the Red-Faced Bomber, the PIO had stopped by the newsroom to drop off what he routinely called "Dumb Crook News." In this particular case, it was the mugs of two guys who thought it was a good idea to ship a few pounds of dope via Fed-Ex.

One of the mugshots pictured a guy with bloodshot, sleepy eyes...the kind of eyes I've seen more times than I can count on people who have taken a few more hits from the bong that the Surgeon General recommends. The other guy was capital "W" Wired. He looked like he'd just mainlined an eightball cut with pure adrenaline. His eyes were blown out and his veins were popping out of his head.

The PIO held up the pictures for us and asked, "Do these guys look like drug dealers or what?"

My wife and I responded with two sentences:

"That guy looks stoned."

"That guy looks like he's been sampling some of his own product."

And that was it. No words other than those. Conversation over.

One thing I didn't mention about the pictures--because it had nothing to do with our responses--is that both of the people in the mugshots were black.

***

Across the room sat a fellow reporter. She heard what we said and applied her reasoning to it. Before long, she had jumped over the head of her immediate supervisor, jumped over the head of the station manager, and written the corporate offices to report that two station employees had engaged in racial stereotyping by declaring two men must be drug dealers because they were black.

Despite being 100% wrong--and despite knowing my wife and I abhor any form of prejudice--this reporter felt a need to escalate the situation to the highest level she could. She would later write a mass email to members of the community with the same allegations. She never addressed the situation with my wife or me. She never asked if we meant what she thought we meant. In short, she didn't care. She was a crusader in need of a crusade.

My wife and I felt fortunate that nearly all of our peers--of all races--rallied behind us. They knew us, they knew how we treated people, and they knew our hearts. That was one of few good things to come of the incident.

While the reporter waged a community-wide campaign against the PIO, my wife, and me, we were told by managers to keep our mouths shut. We were told our jobs were at stake and that we could not be protected. The people we'd trusted with our careers and given--at that point--four years of beyond-dedicated work, told us they couldn't publicly support us. We were stuck listening to someone falsely accuse us of racism, stuck waiting to find out if we were going to be fired over the allegations, and stuck watching our clean reputations tarnished by someone who was on a mission of vitriol.

A local gossip 'zine picked up the story, as did a national journalism trade 'zine. The corporate offices sent down some VP who interviewed us all at length. They hired a diversity mediator--remarkably, one of my favorite college professors--to come down and iron everything out. In the end, every employee of the station was forced to undergo diversity training.

The only things left un-fixed in the situation were three previously spotless reputations. Though we'd never said--nor thought--anything even remotely racist, we'd been labeled racist. It was both painful and infuriating. Still, we kept our mouths shut, lest we cause further problems. I ended up offering what was an honest apology. "I'm sorry if you misunderstood what I said and I'm sorry if it somehow hurt you," I told the reporter. In tears, she said she accepted. She said she felt like she had a responsibility to protect people of her race. She looked honest.

And then she went behind my back and e-mailed members of the community again, and essentially, said we racists had gotten away with it.

***

That was absolutely the worst moment of my professional career, and one of the worst incidents of my personal life. It ruined a lot of the faith I had in people. I actually sat up at night wondering if I had done or said something wrong. My wife and I talked at length about it and wondered, if even by accident, we had said something racist.

We concluded we had not. The color of the skin in the mugshots did not matter. We said:

"That guy looks stoned."

"That guy looks like he's been sampling some of his own product."

We've known people of all races who were high off their asses. We would've said the same thing if they dudes had been a Scotch/Romanian. They were stoned and that was that. For that, we were publicly labeled racists.

The support my peers showed me during the two-month incident buoyed my spirit and helped me recognize that most people in this world are right-thinking. They choose to fix the world by helping people, not by hurting them. I've thanked all of those people before, but, if they happen to read this, I thank you again. You know who you are.

I've thought a lot about that four-year-old incident in the past year or so. The false allegations against the kids at Duke started a lot of the thinking off. Don Imus' hateful, racist, and sexist blather capped it.

There is absolutely a problem with race in this country. The college parties based on stereotypical racist themes are a clear indication that some of the young and privileged white kids are still being raised with prejudice in their hearts. Michael Richards launching into a rage-filled racist tirade is another example of how racism isn't something in which only poor, stupid people engage. Don Imus and, worse, his producer Bernard McGuirk, got away with a lot of bullshit before the market finally sent them off public airwaves.

We all have a responsibility to be honest. We should honestly discuss race. We should apologize if we hurt someone. We should call people out if they hurt us.

That said, there is a very fine line. There are people, at least one of whom I know all too well, who use the racist label as a weapon. They use it as a way to draw attention to themselves. They use it to hurt rather than to help. It's those people who weaken the heartfelt efforts to bridge the racial divide. Every time they cry racist, people listen even less. So, when it comes time to hunt down real prejudice, people are so tired of hearing the wolf-cries, they don't listen nearly as closely as they should.

I'm glad Imus got fired. I'm glad the Duke lacrosse players were exonerated.

I wonder if my old colleague feels the same way.

Labels: Don Imus, Duke Lacrosse, Race, Society, TV News

Dawn of the Dead, Autumn of the Alive
...or...The Answer to Question #1

In a recent post, I solicited questions from my minions. I opened the floor, opened my doors, and offered to answer anything. I figured since I made the offer, I should probably come through. So here goes.

Question #1: Go back to the day you felt most alive. The day you could feel the blood pumping through your veins. The day you wanted to last forever. And tell me about it. --CJ

If you've ever smelled a Missouri spring night, void of humidity, the musty scent of decaying autumn leaves just fleeing the air, you know what it smelled like that night. You know what April smells like in the middle of Missouri when the lakes aren't so far away and the animals in the nearby trees feel like fucking. It's spring and it adds energy to almost anyone who can stand to suck it into their lungs.

The past six months of my life had felt like spring. I'd ridden out the end of fall and full cold of winter in a springlike daze. I'd met my future wife the year before. She'd made me feel more alive than any woman ever had. She'd teased me with clothes that weren't sexy. She found a way to wear them that made me wander in circles, mumbling and counting to fifty. Then, later, she abandoned all the clothes and wore nothing but a sterling silver necklace. If I wrote about that, corporate filters would block this site and you wouldn't be able to read it at work.

Gambling and women have always been the two things that made my heart beat faster. That spring, I'd not yet found Vegas, but I was getting my fix. It was passive-aggressive risk-taking at its finest.

I was a little more than a month away from graduating college. Sleep was reserved for the time I wasn't drinking or rolling around in the covers with the woman who had somehow elevated herself above the standard muse of the moment. The rest of the time I skipped class and thought about Alis.

I've written about Alis Ben Johns before. Some people called him Joe. Some people called him Indian Joe. He was a backwoods Missouri boy with little intelligence, but an incredible knack for surviving outdoors.

He was also a born killer.

By the time I got interested in Alis, he'd already killed two people. The first victim was a willing participant in a drunken roadside argument. Alis shot guy named Teddy along Route KK in Pulaski County, MO. He went on the run, which was easy for him. He claimed--and most people believed--he could sneak up on a cop in the middle of the woods and grab the cop's gun before the officer was ever the wiser.

The cops started getting a little more eager to catch the woodsman after he killed an old man named Leonard. Like he would many times in the future, Alis broke into the old boy's house and killed him for no real reason other than he could.

A week or so later, as the manhunt started to get a little crazy, I found myself sitting in the old dude's house. It was the only time in a career that's now spanned eight years that I've ever seen a law enforcement agency convert a murder victim's house into a command post. It was first time the cops took me back and let me take a look at the actual murder scene, blood stains and all.

They had maps strewn all over the room, coffee makers doing overtime, and a secretary working in the den. It was odd with a capital "O" and I was just beginning to get off on it.

I only worked part-time for a TV station then and I was not required to follow the Alis story wherever it went. Still, I spent an inordinate amount of time tracking through back woods and gullies, doing target practice at lake-area gun shops (I was a crack shot with a .40 caliber), and looking at every man's face to see if he might be Alis.

No one was really surprised when Alis killed again. He didn't seem to have much of a capacity to understand that the more people he killed, the harder the cops were going to look for him and the more his picture would be on TV. So, when he killed an old lady named Wilma in southwest Missouri, it stood to reason that the manhunt would intensify.

At that point, I actually started looking for a woman. Everyone knew Alis had a mama somewhere, but no one could find her. Though I can't remember exactly how I did it, I tracked her down and became the first reporter in Missouri to do so. I eventually made a few hundred bucks selling the interview to CBS' 48 Hours program.

At one point in the interview she looked up at me and said, "They're going to kill him." I couldn't make myself comfort her by telling her it wasn't going to happen because I knew that if a cop had an open shot at Alis, he'd take it.

One night in late March, I found myself at another odd command post. The cops and media had taken over a small bar in Benton County, MO near Cole Camp. They had reason to believe Alis and his girlfriend Beverly were hiding in the area. It had become a full-blown Bonnie and Clyde story without all the messy bank robberies. I stood in a crush of media, barking questions at the county sheriff. National network camera rolled on either side of me. My voice would later be heard on national TV asking the sheriff about Alis' movement around the county woods. At the time, that seemed about like the coolest thing ever. That night I spent the night in a noiseless cabin, soothing my nerves with a beer or two, and wondering how close Alis was.

Then came the night. A Water Patrol officer was checking out a house and ran right into Alis. The killer burst out of the door with a .22 to his girlfriend's head and screamed out, "I've got a hostage. I'll shoot her!"

Just like mama predicted the officer leveled his gun and fired a shot. The elusive Alis Ben Johns was on the ground in a second.

I drove at nearly 100mph all the way to the hospital in Sedalia. When I got there, I found almost every door locked. The glass emergency bay doors were blocked by cops and media. The front doors were sealed shut.

These days I probably wouldn't do what I did that night. I wandered around the perimeter of the facility until I found a janitor who would let me inside. Once inside, I sneaked up to the emergency room where I found a friendly face: The sheriff of Pulaski County. He fed me a little bit of information about Alis' condition and how the arrest went down. Minutes later, I was giving live reports from inside the hospital for my employer and my hometown station in Springfield.

I miss those days of pure, new journalism. I wasn't getting paid anything and didn't care. It was pure adrenaline and sex and one of the best tomes of my life. I wanted that night to last forever. It wasn't the only one that got me off, but it's one of the first and the one I remember most clearly.

Alis is on death row now. That woman in the unsexy sexy clothes is downstairs writing thank you cards to the girls who gave her baby shower gifts. And me? I'm sitting in the dark, drinking unsweetened iced tea and trying to decide which is more important: a sense of home or a sense of accomplishment.

But that's another answer for another question.

Previously: Indian Joe and Why I'm Nuts

Labels: Alis Ben Johns, Crime, Journalism, TV News

I was alone in a dirty little cabin somewhere in the middle of my home state. I was a college student and working for the middle-Missouri NBC affiliate. It was really dark. Everywhere. My camera batteries were on charge. I had one beer in me (all I would let myself drink in the town's only bar and still drive the station's embarassing mini-new-vans). The little bit of alcohol wasn't doing the trick. I couldn't sleep. It was--in part--because a crazed and homicidal mountain man was somewhere in the woods around me and--in part--because I was so excited to be the guy on the story.

Alis Ben Johns (AKA Indian Joe, Joe Johns) was the real-life equivalent of the feaky mountain men you see in Hollywood movies. His beards alone were enough to frighten small children. His mother (I found her in an assisted living facility out in the middle of nowhere--she invited me in and sat down for an interview) described her son as slow, but the type of man who could live in the woods for weeks at a time. He was the type of guy who could be three feet from you in the woods...and you would never know it. His mother wanted him to come home. "They'll kill him," she said.

He was wanted by about a half dozen different police jurisdictions. He killed out of jealousy. He killed for money. He killed three different people in three different far away cities and every new organization in Missouri wanted a piece of the story. CBS's 48 Hours had a four-person crew in the middle of Benton County, Missouri.

The three weeks previous I had been all over middle-Missouri. I had been down the long dirt roads, in the gun shops where scared people were buying .45's, in the home of one of Johns' victims (the Sheriff thought that was as good a place as any to set up a command post), and into that Benton County bar that the Sheriff there had turned into media central. Every few hours the cameras would circle around the young man and he would update us. You can hear my voice in the "48 Hours" story, doing my best not to sound breathless as I asked "Regarding his movement...?"

It was the manhunt of manhunts. The authorities thought they had a pretty good idea where he was and they weren't letting up. Unfortunately, after that one dark night in that dark cabin's bed, I had to let up. I was a college student working for a low-budget station. Until that point, I had the freedom to roam Missouri looking for the killer and the people who knew him. But the run came to an end about two days too early. College students have classes to deal with.

I was actually in the TV station when the word came in. I was in a back room learning "how to become a reporter." (I now know that if I wanted to be a real reporter, I never should've left Benton County). Someone walked in the door and looked directly at me. They knew I had lived and breathed Alis Ben Johns for about six weeks.

"They got him."

I'm not sure how many bad words I said as I grabbed my stuff and ran out the door. I don't know how many laws I broke as I flew toward Cole Camp Creek in that embarassing little mini-van. I only know that I was soon standing in an emergency room and may have been doing so illegally. The hospital had cordoned off the emergency room door, but not a back door that a maintenance man led me to. Once I was inside, the good Sheriff didn't make me leave and fed me juicy tidbits. Water Patrol officers had shot Johns' as he held his girlfriend at gunpoint. I was soon providing a phone report to my employer and my home town station KY3. It was a fine moment for me, but not as fine as if I had been there.

And that's why I'm nuts.

It's like a dog seeing the leash but not getting the walk. Or an alcoholic seeing sobriety at the bottom of a bottle. The culmination was cut short. Money shot interuptus.

I don't think about Indian Joe very much anymore. When I do it both excites and depresses me.

It reminds me of the time when I wanted nothing more than to do my job.

That is both exciting...and depressing.

Related: Alis Ben Johns

Labels: Alis Ben Johns, Crime, Journalism, TV News