The "Gopher" Begins
My first day at Channel 40/29 I wore a suit jacket and tie, which I was told to do by the adults in my life. It felt awful. I took comfort in the fact that just about everyone working there in the newsroom that day was also dressed up, even when they weren't on camera. They only people who didn't have to dress up were the camera guys. They were in jeans and T-shirts. They had it good.
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My boss at the station was a guy named Rick Tabor, who was a head producer. He said my job was going to be standing next to this little table and watching this dot-matrix printer. Every so often, the printer would spring to life and print out these little stories about news events from around the country. It was called a "wire" printer. I learned there were these news services called the Associated Press, or AP, and United Press International (UPI) that would sort-of upload their stories and have then sent out to stations across the country where they were printed out.
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These stories came in catagories, like sports, politics, and entertainment. The wire service was the station's link to the outside news world. And if something dramatic happened, that story could be ripped off the printer and read, practically verbatim, live on air, if necessary.
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My job was to rip from the printer each story after it finished printing. If there were multiple stories to be ripped, I was suppose to create separate piles, grouping stories by catagory: weather stories went in one pile, politics in another, etc. Rick would sometimes instruct me to watch for a specific story coming down the wire. When that happened, I was to run it over to him immediately.
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It was a pretty dull way to start my work there, but I took my responsibilities seriously. The newsroom itself was cluttered with all kinds of papers and cassette tapes. Phones were always ringing and the sound of electric typewriters never stopped. Directly next to the wire printer, and my designated work space, were two rooms called "edit bays". This is where they edited the video they shot during the day. I was careful not to show too much interest in the goings-on in those bays. I felt too new for that, too (I don't know!)...young.
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It was neat seeing some of the people I saw on television in real life. Notable among them was Craig Cannon, who anchored the main newscasts. He was also the news director, and Rick Tabor's boss. There was the weatherman, Ken Rank, and a couple field reporters I recognized from television. One of them was Jean Anderson; she seemed like fun because she was always smiling and joking with everyone.
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I pretty much kept to myself the first couple days. Rick could be impatient and grumpy. I felt it was better to stick to task when he was around. Every now and then I'd break away (usually when bathroom-bound) to explore different parts of the station. There were no other gophers and no other kids my age. I wasn't getting to know anyone. That's is, until I heard the voice behind me.
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"Hey, do you know how to edit?"
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It was a male voice and it came from the edit bays nearby.
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I looked around to see who it was. Sticking his head through the bay door was David Lang, one of the sports anchors.
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He was staring at me intently. And he was waiting for my answer.
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