My apologies for keeping you waiting so long between posts. December was a bit more crazy than I gave it credit for. But I'll be back with vengeance for sure in 2013. We're just starting a couple of days early, that's all.
Let's talk about one of my favorite things in the whole world of reporting: the scrum. You see it in the TV news every night, especially in sports. It's when the interviewee has a handful, well, several handfuls of microphones in front of his/her face and they are being asked questions from the circle. It saves the interviewee from having to answer the same ten questions over and over again. It's also time-saving for those of us in the media who are usually on some sort of deadline. It works well. For the most part.
You see, there's a method to the madness, at least here in Calgary. As weird as it sounds, most media types get along really well with one another. There's this misconception that we're elbowing each other out of the way, tampering with each other's equipment and trying to yell and scream our questions over everyone else. The first two hardly ever happen (if at all) while the third does happen, especially when it comes to politicians. We're actually really polite. We let cameras get into as good of a position as possible, we let the TV reporters stand between the cameras, while the radio and print guys sort of fan off on each side. Hence why you always see me in the background. It's not that I like to be on TV, it's mainly for cross-promotional effect (get the logo on my jacket in the shot and people will hopefully listen to my radio station). Nifty, eh? It doesn't happen all the time (the order and cordial atmosphere), but it happens more often than not.
Now, not surprisingly, I have a few pet peeves when it comes to the scrum. In no particular order:
#1. The Political Supporter Scrum
This happens around election time or whenever there's a "good photo op". The party leader or the main speaker wants to have some of their supporters behind them. I understand the premise of it, but what they don't realize is that the TV cameras are almost always zoomed in. Which means the supporters are hardly ever in the shot. The big issue from my standpoint, is that it limits just how close we can get our microphones to the interviewee. Why? Because putting supporters behind you turns it from an almost full-circle around the interview to a semi-circle. And when you have multiple media outlets trying to get a mic in, it becomes a challenge. And that's when we break out the Gordie Howe elbows.
#2. The Overly Enthusiastic Mic Flash
Within the art of the scrum, there's the "Art of the Mic Placement". Over the years, it's come to my attention that a lot of people don't know where to hold the microphone near their interviewee. And chances are you've seen this on TV every so often. The mic flash (what the media outlets put on the microphone to let people see their logo) is in all sorts of ungodly spots around the interviewee's face. Some just don't know any better. Others have been told they need to boost ratings so "get that mic flash into everyone's shot, even if it means covering up most of the interviewee's face". Yes. I've seen it happen. The optimal position is 4"-6" down and away from the mouth of the interviewee. You get your clips and your recognition, while the interviewee isn't eating microphone.
#3. The Bored Reporter
How do you tell a reporter isn't really interested in the scrum they're taking part in? Watch their microphone. It bobs and weaves and wreaks havoc amongst all the other mics. The reporter might be taking a picture of the scrum to put up on Twitter, or they might be checking their email. Heck, I've seen some reporters take calls while in the midst of the scrum. It does look a little funny on TV. But where it becomes problematic is when their mic starts playing bumper cars with the others. Nothing like coming back to the station only to hear a clip like this: "I think we pla*bang*yed a good game*bang*. Their goal*bang*ie was stopping every*bang*thing and *bang* we just didn't get any bou*bang*nces." Not ideal for us radio folks.
#4. The Awful Audio Board
You'd be surprised how often this happens. Go to a news conference and instead of having a scrum for the announcement, the organizers have hired a "professional audio/video company", who have set up a podium and a single microphone, which goes to a little black box of sorts, which supplies everyone with an audio feed. Sounds good, right? Less stress on the arm, less microphones in the way, all that jazz. But then you listen to the audio and it's distorted, over-modulated, or just plain bad. The "professionals" have no idea what could be going wrong. These guys and gals supposedly do this many times a year. It's their set-up. yet they don't know what's wrong. So let this one be a lesson to all you PR folks out there. Invest in a good audio team if you want to go this route. Otherwise, we'll unplug from your feed and put the microphones on the podium. Even if you don't like that because "that's where the speech is supposed to go". (Bit of an inside joke of sorts: I had a "disagreement" with one PR rep for a high-ranking government official as he was adament that we don't put our mics on the podium, even though he failed to supply us with an audio box. So I told him that it'd be in his boss' best interests to rectify that situation if she wanted her speech in the news. Didn't happen. I'll let you guess which politician I'm talking about.)
I've been twisted up like a pretzel and been on my knees getting my mic into a scrum. I've held my arms in precarious positions for 15-20 minutes at a time and lost feeling in my limbs thanks to -40 temperatures. Never a dull moment while in the search for the big news stories of the day. I'm sure there's plenty of other scrum stories out there. So feel free to share in the comments. Until next time, my friends!
