The investigative reports we produce are often considered “long” in the world of local TV news.
The “long” pieces I’ve been a part of range from two minutes all the way to my personal record of nine minutes and 36 seconds.
My latest piece about a high profile hit-and-run case involving the death of a beloved family doctor was somewhere in the middle, at just over four minutes.
We uncovered that investigators served a warrant on Google for information about anyone who used the search engine to look up details about the case in the days after Dr. Cathy Donovan was killed.
Those so-called “reverse warrants” are at the center of a growing debate about whether they violate Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches by the government.
Privacy advocates also argue that such warrants can actually make it harder to find a suspect.
One of our interview subjects compared reverse warrants to looking for a needle in a haystack and then adding “more haystack.”
That’s when a lightbulb went off in my TV reporter brain.
“What if I actually throw a needle into a haystack and then throw some more hay on top?” I thought to myself. “That would make a helluva stand up!”
(TV lingo alert: A “stand up” is where the reporter demonstrates or explains something on camera in the recorded part of a story)
The idea seemed simple enough, but actually finding a place that would let me “play around” with their hay was harder than I thought.
One of my coworkers had the great idea of asking the equine center at our local university for help. Unfortunately, they said no.
Then I got my hands on a list of private hay sellers in the area.
That prompted me to make a series of bizarre “cold calls” to the ones who were at least somewhat close to the Twin Cities metro.
They went something like this:
“Hi, my name is Eric. I’m a reporter with KSTP.”
Other end of the phone: (Silence)
Me: “I know this is unusual, but I’m looking for some hay to use in a short segment for a TV story we’re doing.”
Other end of the phone: Huh?
Me: “I promise this isn’t about the hay industry or your farm in particular. I just need to talk about the proverbial haystack, throw a needle into it, and then pick up some more hay.”
In the background: One of my coworkers laughing out loud as he listened to my pitch.
One seller I reached said he would be open to it, so I asked if he had any hay that I could actually pick up.
Farmer: “Well, our bales each weigh about 800 pounds.”
As I started to lose faith, I finally reached a really nice guy named Randy. His family had a farm about 45 minutes from my TV station and they were willing to help.
Randy and his son greeted photographer Lee and me that afternoon and walked us over to a barn with an almost perfect layout of hay.
We shot that “stand up” about five different ways. Each time, I had to throw this little blue needle, pick it out, and start all over again.
Randy and his son just stood about 10 feet away and seemed to be amused by my performance. I can only imagine what they were thinking.
So, after about 15 minutes on the farm and about 90 minutes of driving, round trip, this was the finished product.
All of that for nine seconds of TV.
Was it worth it? I guess you can decide.
For me, it absolutely was worth the trouble. Not just because it was some kind of performative “trick,” but I’ve learned over the years that our stories have to constantly engage our viewers – with our words *and* with the visual elements we choose to include.
If you want to see how that stand up fits in with the entire story, you can watch it here.