The Unmentioned

So lately I've been manning the news desk a lot at Channel 4. Which, naturally, means I'm also spending a lot of time answering calls on the hotline for news tips.

Unfortunately, as I have learned, the action on the hotline isn't always hot.

The other night, I got a call that went something like this:

"Channel 4 Action News."

"Yes, I was wondering if you could give me some general information?"

(I'm not doing anything else at the moment, and I figure this might be related to a story we did, so I say...)

"Sure."

"Do you know what types of ethnic foods are popular in Cincinnati?"

(WTF.)

"Uh, no, I honestly have no idea."

(Then I hear some mumbling and shouting in the background. "He doesn't know."---"What?"---"HE SAID HE DOESN'T KNOW!"---"Well, ask if there's someone else there who knows."---"WHAT?"---"I said, ASK IF HE CAN TRANSFER YOU TO SOMEONE ELSE!")

(The caller returns his/her attention to me.)

"Is there someone else there who would know?"

(By this point, I've already pulled up a Yellow Pages website that lists a few ethnic restaurants in the Cincinnati area, so I tell the caller what I've found.)

*Click.*

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That's right. After I actually took the time to perform my apparent duties as a human extension of Wikipedia, the caller hangs up, without saying thank you.

As you can imagine, I was a little irritated. And confused. Honestly, who are these people?

Then there are those calls that are the sort of heart-wrenching experiences you don't expect to encounter while you're just sitting in the newsroom waiting for something interesting to happen. I'll give an example, but hold off on facts for the caller's sake:

"Channel 4 Action News."

"Yes, I wanted to let you know about a missing child."

(The call continues. At first, it sounds like the caller is just reporting something heard over a police scanner or heard about from a neighbor or something. Finally, after giving me all the info, the caller says...)

"I just thought maybe you could broadcast a picture of [the child] and get the word out."

"Yes, I understand."

"No, you don't understand, nobody understands. [The child] is my [relation]."

(What do you say to that? The caller was in tears now. I felt like I wanted to cry, too, as the caller continued to describe the situation and pleaded with me to get someone to do a story on it.)

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The sad part is, it's not up to me which stories we do and which we don't do, so I couldn't promise the caller that we would do a story on it. Even if I did have some say in which stories get coverage, we don't have the manpower or the airtime to cover every story that should be covered. That's one of the toughest realities in broadcast news, especially at a relatively small station like our own (I've been told by several people that we have about half the staff of KDKA).

(Just to be fair and clarify, with respect to the missing child, a formal report was filed with the police and the information did make it out to the public via the media local to the area in question. The area was far enough away that it wouldn't have been practical to send a reporter out to cover the story, at least not immediately. I passed the information along to my editor, so we'll see what happens. For all I know, they may have already found the child. I hope so.)

Anyways, I'm feeling a little solemn now, so I think I'll quit there. Suffice to say that journalists have to make some tough calls.