News of the day.

" Ugh. I HATE the news. . .it's always negative. " 

This little sentence, composed in one form or a slight variation of this, is spoken in many of my TV Land travels. Even after decades of travel and covering THOUSANDS of positive, community driven uplifting stories, I still see and hear viewers criticizing the news business. 

If these folks only saw what happens. . . 

So, what is the news for today, I hear you ask?

It's no secret the news covers many negative stories. From death and destruction, to fires and flood, we in the news business have to cover almost of these things which hurt ( sometmes even kill people ) that ultimately change us forever. And it affecs all of us, yes, even affects those in the business. Deeply. 

However, let's examine some things, for the sake of clarity. 

News, by it's nature, is NOT only about bad stuff. It is the communication of important information on events or people,  for you to know. It is INFORMATION only. And when a community is informed of these events, then the viewers ( or even readers ) have the option to take that info and make usage of it. To this very day, there are a few ( no names to protect the guilty ) who truly believe that fake news is a real thing. 

In short, there is no such thing as fake news (expect some future blogs on that little subject soon ). How do you fake information that is sent out by professionals?

Here's a great example: 

One summer morning, in 2016, I covered a house fire that occurred in South Sacramento. The cause for that fire, as seen by the first responders when they arrived, had to do with candles left burning overnight. Of course, somehow, the candles were not blown out before the residents went to sleep and the result was a total loss of that home. Luckily, the residents were able to flee in time and get out before the fire crews showed up. 

When we cover stories like this, the FIRST thing I listen to is the sound of smoke alarms going off. Sounds weird, but stick with me. The reason for this tact has to do with the upcoming question(s) I will be asking the fire deartment Chief, who is the usual person the media speaks to when getting information on fire. And, on this particular morning, the Chief informed the few of us camera folk that a smoke alarm was found and was not working. At all. 

In other words, it was a miracle the folks got out when they did. 

You would be surprised to know that even with all of the modern technologies we have in our society today, a basic smoke alarm is almost always not regarded highly. It's a VERY important responsibility to check on your alarms. And these alarms need battery changes, every few months. It doesn't hurt to " test " the alarms every few weeks, just in case. 

So, in the composition process of editing a story like this, camera people, along with a steady group of professional producers/anchors and production personel will edit/present a story like this with an emphasis on the smoke alarm not working in the first or second sentence of the story. Why do we do this? Simple: It's reminding everyone to ( highlighted for importance ) to PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR SMOKE ALARM. This approach has nothing to do with being negative and everything to do with helping get the word out on smoke alarms saving lives. 

In this case, I was able to get to the " scene " early and get flames coming out of the house, with some footage of residents standing outside unable to move and rescue their home from flames. I got video of the Chief interview and sent back the important moments where he stated the smoke alarm was not working by the time the fire crews got to the scene. We used all of this footage of course. You could, dear reader, call this process gate keeping--the process of sending back certain information without the full picture. But the way I composed my shots had more to do with presenting the story as a reminder of the importance of smoke alarms ( most of my shots had flames coming out of the roof including shots of crews bringing out burned out materials ). I never shoot video of people crying. A loss like this is impossible to capture fully on camera. 

Having been in the news myself a long time ago, when it came to my own loss of someone important, I never forgot what it feels like when a camera and microphone is stuck in front of one's face. It's not paradise. And I'm lucky enough to have that experience which helps me get interviews with others. It's always good to be considerate when it comes to interviews. So, I approached the residents with my camera facing away from them. In the case of fires, people who survive them are in shock mode. Interestingly enough, I was able to get interviews with the aforementioned residents, one of which was holding a little dog, shivering. And they all spoke to me. 

In the end, my station came away with a story that changed lives. But in the presentation of this story, we all knew we did a story where the viewer could make changes to their lives, by simply paying attention to smoke alarms. There was nothing negative in the presentation but something positive in the end on human lives being saved by the skin of fate's teeth. 

There was nothing fake in this story. It was real and it happened. And my station did the right thing by covering the story for our community. 

But, what happens after we transmit a story like this? We simply send it out, make corrections as the story " progresses " ( i.e. the resulting investigation into the fire ) and go about our day. Sometimes, we get special updates on these stories, such as donational efforts to help these familes from fires. 

As a result, we always go out of our way to producer and update these kind of stories. But we never forget the importance of telling everyone how vital information is to our communities. We may never get it right ALL THE TIME. But we work hard , at my station at least, to make sure you know how to start and end your day right. 

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is your news for the day. 

Until tomorrow. . .
David