Alison and Adam

What hangs with me, some two days after the killings of WDBJ's Alison Parker and Adam Ward, is the sound of her screams. It wasn't the long, horror movie scream, but a series of short screams. It was the sound of being startled and frightened, like when someone jumps out at a girl in a house of horror and shouts: "Boo!" At the time, I took it as a good sign: as long as she was screaming, she was alive. I am used to the sound of gunshots on TV (I edit the network footage, full of the violence of the world, every morning), but those half-dozen or so screams were both familiar and troubling, especially now that I know what they mean. It inhabits my mind.

However, to be honest, I must note that I didn't know any of the characters well. Adam was working in production when I was at WDBJ, running the in-studio camera, getting promoted to the actual Photojournalist job only as I was leaving. Both Alison and their killer were hired after I left. It is a small world we work in, and even smaller in a relatively tiny city like Roanoke, and so we run into each other often on the streets and generally get along amiably. But I don't want to create the illusion that they were some great friends of mine.

If you want a personal connection, there is the fact that I held that very job -- the morning field reporter's photographer -- for a year or so before moving over to do Fox's morning show. I think it was Adam who replaced me. But I have to say, this in no way troubles me. I didn't have to deal with the workplace annoyance that the killer was (rather, I was most amused as friends still there told me stories about it), and the whole thing really seemed in that way distant from me.

But those screams hang on. That poor girl.

It is a shocking and startling event. We watched it more or less live in the newsroom, just before starting our own morning show. Someone came in saying that "something" had happened on the WDBJ live report. Another local journalist quickly posted a recording on his FB page, and we then acquired a copy ourselves. Frankly, I thought it was a drive by -- a few wild shots that scared everyone, and then we'd all move on.

What I didn't know -- and wouldn't know for a while -- was that across town (I work at the local Fox affiliate, they were at the CBS station), the people in the control room were listening to a horrible silence. For those unfamiliar with TV, the reporter has what is known as an IFB -- it's that earplug they wear -- where the director and producer can talk directly to them from the control room. When you're in the field as Alison and Adam were, it's usually plugged into a cell phone that has been dialed into a special phone line back at the station. After something unexpected, the producer would probably get on the IFB saying, "What the hell was that?!" And the reporter would call in with an explanation and maybe an apology. Then they would all move on.

But Wednesday, all the control room heard was silence.

In our newsroom, we were all struggling to find out what happened ourselves. The police are typically difficult and unwilling to commit. At first, they would say there was an "incident," then after an agonizing period, a "shooting," then a "shooting with injuries." And that's when it went from just another story to something truly serious. Now it wasn't some weird, wacky "Thing" that happened, like accidentally falling off the stage or saying an obscene word on air. But how serious?

You send people to the scene, but it's nearly an hour's drive away from the station. The police have nothing further to say -- they are "investigating." Side rumors are flying. But most of all, as a journalist, you are in breaking news mode.

It's like how a doctor disassociates from a patient. You don't spend a lot of time thinking deeply about the subject and what it means; you just gather the information, get the picture, find out what happened and organize it to make an understandable report. The whole scene was on the one hand surreal -- we're more than familiar with the people, the place, and that sort of thing doesn't happen to people you know in places like that -- and on the other very businesslike.

It's only later that the philosophy seeps in.

The other thing that stays me is their youth, or rather the lives interrupted. I remember that time: when you're getting everything in place. You have found what you want to be, and you're on the upslope of that career, nothing but sunshine and the summit of achievement ahead of you. Both had decided to marry, having finally found the partner for that journey. And then ... nothing. It's done. All that potential, all that hope and ambition and joy. The future is no more. It's heartbreaking.

By Monday, we'll have all moved on. After all, in Syria this happens ten times daily. Being a journalist at all in Pakistan, in Russia, in Mexico, in too many places comes with the expectation of personal risk. I don't blame the world for losing interest. But it will stick with us for a while.

It was in the Corner Just Where I Left It

Every so often, I am struck by phrases we use casually, phrases that we all understand but have lost all of their literal meaning.

A longtime, personal favorite is "spare change." What is that? Is that to mean that you have money - you know, the money that you actually use - and then you have some extra that you keep around, but don't really need or plan to ever have any use for, but just have in case of an emergency, like a spare tire? People may have more money than they need, or even more than they could ever spend (I'm looking at you, Donald Trump), but when is that ever spare?

Another is "find the time," as in: "I just couldn't find the time for that." Where was this time that you found? Did it pile up in a corner with the dust and dirty laundry? How is it you didn't notice this time, just laying around there, before? And finally, who knew that time could just wander off like that? No wonder we seem to have so little.

Maybe if we had some spare time, like spare change, carefully boxed up in a safe place just in case we needed it. After all, we all have some extra time we're not using, right?

Be This Guy

From BuzzFeed

We all like to think we would be that guy - the one who holds his morals and stands up in the face of evil. But I think about this every so often, and I fear I might have been worse than simply not being that guy.

"13 Minutes"

“I find Elser is someone to be proud of because he wasn’t an aristocrat or an educated man, he was an ordinary German craftsman and he chose to resist. He had that moral courage inside him. What makes his story even more remarkable is that he managed to resist in the countryside, because it was easier to keep to yourself in a big city. There was more anonymity there. In the countryside everyone knew everyone else so there was more pressure to conform.”

It's really embarrassing, in a way. It's not like all sorts of people didn't resist, or actively work against the Nazis.  There was an active German underground - it doesn't get as good press as that of the French (who needed something to cling to after a lot of their Jews seemed to disappear, among other things) - and there are a lot of other examples of people under Nazi rule who at worst managed to make the machinery of oppression grind very slowly and poorly, and at best actively fought.

Richard Pryor on the Nazis: "Was iz das?" "Oh, nothin'. Just funning around..."

However, history is more commonly full of people who would rather be left alone while they get on with their lives. In fact, if you go through all history carefully, you find the general rule is like that in the average American election: 20 percent on each extreme end, and about 60 percent in the middle. Or, f you want, split into thirds: one third for, one third against, and one third who want to be left alone to go about their business.

The Nazis provides a particularly invidious example, and not just for the reason you might think. With 20-20 hindsight, it's easy to see their evil from top to bottom, starting with mass killings of not just Jews, but political opponents, other troublesome religions, the mentally retarded, the handicapped, and on and on. There's the absorption of all society into a grand social scheme, the usurpation of children from their parents. But at the start, especially for your average person not paying close attention, this wasn't so clear. Then, they seemed an understandable, crypto-conservative/socialist reaction to the tough times ... with cool uniforms. If one is honest, it's easy to imagine joining up for the parades.

Triumph of the Will

What does this mean? One perhaps should approach exciting political ideas - especially those that claim to solve everything easily - with caution. And one should be humble. Though we may hope to be Martin Niemöller, we generally fall into that middle third, just going along to get along ...

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—
and there was no one left to speak for me.

Addendum

Apparently I'm not the only one who is now tired of the flag debate.

"I am here to say there is something at stake far more important than this symbol," says "Southern Avenger" Jack Hunter.

"Heritage might not be hate. But battling hate is far more important than anyone’s heritage, politics, or just about anything else. We should have different priorities."

About that Flag ...

Flag of the First Texas Infantry Regiment

Ya' know, maybe we need to think about this. The whole flag thing is getting old.

I found the whole debate tiresome to begin with: few who objected to the Confederate Battle Flag seemed to have even the simplest grasp of what it was, let alone what it meant, and those defending it often seemed unable to hear themselves and the antiquated, absurd rhetoric they were using. But now, it's become embarrassing.


"Let me be clear: I don’t think that everyone who reveres the flag is racist," J. Richard Cohen, the President of the Southern Poverty Law Center writes in Time. "Surely all of the people who apply for state-issued license plates bearing the flag do not believe in the hatred with which some people display it. For many South Carolinians, the flag at this point may well represent heritage without the taint of past racism.

"But they should ask themselves, Whose heritage are they celebrating?"

Indeed, after the shootings in Charleston, SC, the use of this particular flag has truly passed its time, hasn't it? I mean, the CSA and its military used at least four flag patterns (depending on how one treats the "Bonnie Blue" flag); can't we just use one of those when honoring people who served as soldiers believing that they were merely defending their homeland?

The Bonnie Blue Flag

from Wikipedia

Not that I think this will solve anything or end the debate, but maybe I should note that - like Mr. Cohen - I don't think all the people who display the battle flag are bigots. Far from it: I'm usually the guy defending both it and them. I've spent a lot of time explaining historical and regional details to people in this. But the SC shooter has pushed me past the limit.

So I'm done. If I want to talk about the admirable aspects of Robert E. Lee (and note the less-than-admirable ones), just to pick an example, I'll do it using one of the other flags, one that dimwitted lunatics haven't expropriated.

Robert E. Lee's personal headquarters flag

from the Encyclopedia Virginia

Sooner or Later, You'll Need A Source

So there's been a bit of a micro-sensation as Apple first announced a music streaming service and then, more to the point here, started putting together a news service, called "News." CNN Money worries - or rather, passes on the worries of others, because as a "legit" news operation, it can't have opinions of its own - that Apple "job listings provoked some of the anxiety that is palpable in the news industry at a moment of intense tech-fueled disruption. Journalists on Twitter cracked dark jokes about being put out of work by Apple when the job listings circulated widely on Monday."

But here's the thing about all of this - and a thing that has frustrated me as technology has disrupted journalism - sooner or later, the stories have to come from somewhere. In other words: Apple's News, and Yahoo, and even the now ancient Drudge Report, though they do some original reporting, all still are pretty much news aggregators. This is a cheap way to move information around without having to pay for the content creation; you just take other people's work and point at it.

And that's where I get frustrated: the internet isn't the only technology that's revolutionized how we get news. Cameras are cheaper, smaller and more efficient, video editing is a totally different, easier, and cheaper process than when I started some 30 years ago, still photographs are virtually cost free thanks to digital (which eliminated the costs of film and processing), sending stories is now a breeze via worldwide internet connections accessed by commonly available, free wifi connections. So now, rather than having to build an expensive bureau somewhere, staffed by a number of workers in specialized fields using expensive equipment to create content that then has to be sent to a central distribution point via expensive, unique transmission lines, a news organization can send out a kid with a camera and a laptop ... virtually anywhere.

But news organizations are cutting down on bureaus, counting on free consumer-provided content (don't get me started again on the "everyone's a photographer with the iPhone" thing) or locally produced (usually by state-owned and -run operations) material revoiced by some network reporter at a hub half a continent away (or not changed at all, when linked via an aggregator). In my earlier blog on iPhones, etc., I quoted Boston photographer John Tlumacki: "I’m so sick of citizen journalism, which kind of dilutes the real professionals’ work. I am promoting real journalism, because I think that what we do is kind of unappreciated and slips into the background."

So what happens when every outlet becomes an aggregator? It's much, much cheaper - you need only employ a limited number of "editors" to move material around, and they don't really need to be journalists, just web mavens. Maybe you collate a few pictures or factoids and put them under a clickbait headline ("7 Ways You May Be Killed By Your Puppy!"), but nor real reporting or news gathering.

But then, where do the stories come from? Sooner or later, you have to have a source.

Lessons I Have Learned from Having a Cooking Segment on TV

The best thing about having chefs on our morning show most every day is, of course, the food.

The next best thing is the tricks and techniques you learn, things that you not only didn't know but probably never gave any thought to when trying to cook yourself.

1. Use Nonstick Spray. No, all the time, not just when you're worried your cake will stick to the pan. Always. I know you've got Teflon pans, and they're nonstick miracles of science. Spray on the stuff anyhow, what'll it hurt?

2. Just Let the Food Cook. So you lay your bacon in the pan and it starts to sizzle. You're tempted to reach in there with the spatula and move it around, maybe flip it a few times to make sure it doesn't stick. (See above.) Stop. Don't. Just let it sit there and cook. How is it supposed to cook properly if you keep messing with it and taking it away from the heat? Flip it when that side is done, not because you're nervous.

3. Cook Real Food, with Real Ingredients. Honestly, it's not that much harder or more time consuming to make stuff from "scratch." (And when I say "scratch," I don't mean you have to make your own tomato sauce or salad dressing; let's be reasonable.) Cutting up real vegetables, chopping fresh herbs, stirring it into just basic things like tomato sauce - not completely pre-made jars of spaghetti sauce - really does make things taste better. And they taste just the way you want them to.

4. Prep. This is the secret to not making yourself crazy doing Instruction 3. Spend a few minutes before you start pulling together your ingredients, chopping, dicing, shredding or whatever you need to do to them, and having them all set out in little bowls and ramekins. You know, like they do in the cooking shows? Then you're not rushing around the kitchen trying to find this thing or that, all in a panic, while your food is burning.

Actually, I have begun to find this step in the process not dull or frustrating, but rather very soothing ... almost a zen-like, calming moment. It lets me know that I have all my ingredients and that I have everything under control. And the regular, controlled chopping and prepping process itself is almost like a meditation before going to work.

5. Use Salt and Pepper. In the 80s, there was this thing against salt, and everyone stopped cooking with it. But it's a flavor enhancer and - when not done to extreme - it really helps, as does pepper. Go ahead: throw some around as you cook, then taste it and see if you need more. You'll be surprised how much this helps as you go along.

6. Having a Go-To Technique Is Not Lazy. It's a go-to technique. It ensures that, when confronted with something you're unsure about, you still have a pretty good chance you'll make a decent meal out of it. For me, it's garlic and butter (and maybe sauteed onions, depending on what's being faced). I figure you could hand me a bowl of crickets and, with a hot pan and enough garlic, onions, and butter (and salt and pepper; see above), I could make something I would be willing to eat.

7. Don't Be Afraid. You know, often if something isn't what you wanted, it can still be good. Frequently, you can save yourself by falling back on a trusted technique (See 6. above). Or you can just chuck it, if it's hopeless, and move on. This happens to the best of us, like in the Julia Child video. (At 2:50, she completely jacks up flipping her potato pancake. "But you can always pick it up, if you're alone in the kitchen," she infamously says. "Who is going to see?") I can't tell you how many of our segments turned out to be about, not just slightly, but completely different dishes than planned.

8. And Finally - And Most Importantly - You Are Not a Chef! Even after all this, and even though all your friends and family tell you what a fabulous cook you are, even though you have a bunch of very expensive knives and really nice pots and pans, you are not a Chef. Or rather (with, not irony, but spoken-seriously-with-intent quotes) a "Chef."

Chefs are professionals. They have careers, they went to school just for this. The work really, really hard. Actually, the word in French means "chief." He isn't a cook, he runs the entire kitchen. Don't cook a few good meals and think you are a "Chef." Show these people some respect.

...

These aren't all the rules of cooking, nor are they the only ones or even the best ones, but they are what I have learned from watching while the experts work.