Fun With the Media

I've been in the news business news for over seven years and ever since I have left Toledo I've covered some big news events, Jessica Lynch (I was one of the first photographers to cover the story), the West Virginia Sniper, the 2004 presidential elections from Ohio (insane!), Hurricane Katrina aftermath (I actually got to go into New Orleans within the first week via Humvee) covered the Fiesta Bowl between Ohio State and Notre Dame and I almost got hit by a tornado south of Lima. So I come to Raleigh and what do I have to deal with? The Duke Lacrosse trial.

This week has been crazy. The North Carolina's Attorney General threw out the charges against the players and then today was the first hearing on District Attorney for Durham County Mike Nifongs bar hearing. IF you do not know, he is having a hearing to see if he over stepped his boundary and also to see if he did a few things that were against the law like, not reporting information to the defense that I don't know would prove that they did not do it.

Since the entire case has received national attention this was big news, and multiple national crews came out to play; CNN, Fox, NBC, CBS were there and even Katie Curic was hanging around earlier in the week. The weird thing about national crew are that they come into town and every local officials fawns over then and network sometimes just steps all over them. Some even try to walk over the local stations. They forget what it is like to be a local, and my job is usually to bring them back to Earth. This time though almost all the crews were cool. One guy use to work here and I remember seeing one guy from another story.

For a large portion of the day we sat around and waited for something to happen and then BOOM Nifong is seen walking towards the building. Have you ever seen the video of sharks in a feeding frenzy? You know there is blood in the water and the sharks are fighting over the carcass. That's what it was like today. Someone sees him, everyone races over and pushes, shoves and jockies for position to the best shot, it can get ugly. Luckily I did not have to be in the frey. I was on the other corner and Chief was the one running into a wall. I hurried over to the door for the shot him walking into the building. The crowd kept getting larger and larger and larger till I had to put my hand out and stop another photographer from ramming as he walked backwards.

All is quiet till the current hearing is over, then the frey starts all over. I once again get luckily I am setting up the live shot. Nifong walks out and starts walking away, the crowd of 7-10 reporters and 15 still and video photographers move with him for the rest of the block. Once again, more shoving pushing and general ugliness. The strange thing though no one gets mad over all this. It's just part of the job and everyone just lives with it.

Everything winds down we finish up our live shots and that's where I get a little banged up. I grab the Chief's tripod from the leveler (A knob underneath the tripod head and in between the legs that allows to adjust the head of the tripod so it is well, level.) and attempt to hand it to him. For some reason he rushed to grab it and turned away from me. I did not let go fast enough and he closes the legs on my wrist and then my hand nearly touches the back of my arm. I wiggle free and nearly scream like a little girl. I believe I may have sprained my right wrist, which I use for everything (insert masturbation joke here). The sad thing is that I've sprained my wrist at least 5 times (insert masturbation joke here) so I know what I have to do, wrap it and pop a couple of Advil and try not to use my right hand for a few days (insert masturbation joke here).

So even though I was at a large media even I get injured hand off a tripod, holy crap am I injury prone.