Some people believe that being a reporter or in the media is "glamorous". They think it's "so cool". And for the most part, they're right. It's not a bad job at all. But this past week reminded me of the stupid situations we can find ourselves in.
Remember the game "Frogger"? It was an early computer game built on the premise that you control the main frog character as you dodge traffic to get from the bottom of the screen to the top of the screen. You gotta deal with all sorts of vehicles and obstacles to get to your destination. Well, there's a real-life version of it. It's called "Reporter". The goal is to cross as many lanes of traffic as possible, on foot, trying to get to an incident or get to a potential interviewee.
Last week, I had the unenviable task of covering a fatal semi-truck crash on Deerfoot Trail in Calgary. I was fortunate in the sense that I arrived early enough to avoid the main traffic backups. I parked inside the grass part of the "cloverleaf" intersection and proceeded to do my job. What I failed to realize (at the time) was that I had parked on the wrong side of 17th Avenue/Blackfoot Trail to get a picture. And I wasn't about to hop in my vehicle just to cross the road. So I figured it shouldn't be an issue trying to cross. At that particular location though, it was crossing six lanes of traffic. On foot. If this were Twitter, I'd hashtag it #fatkidproblems. I got it done and lived to see another day.
The next day, I was sent out to the Trans-Canada Highway for several rollovers. The icy conditions were wreaking havoc on traffic heading in and out of the city. Not a big deal, until I realized that all of the crashes were in the eastbound lanes and I was heading westbound. So I pulled into an approach and figured I'd get some pictures and try to get the attention of an RCMP officer to do an interview about how busy it was for them. I figured traffic was going slow enough that I could cross the highway easy enough. But the road was icy enough that getting proper traction on my size-11 shoes was tough. So there's me, illegally crossing a highway in front of a bunch of emergency crews, trying to avoid oncoming traffic. Not my finest moment.
This isn't the only time I've willingly put my life in harm's way. I remember one of my first weekends in Calgary in '07, I was called out to a bomb threat at city hall. There I was, the newest reporter in the big city, driving into the downtown, when I wondered out loud "what if this bomb is real?" Word of caution for any reporter caught in a similar situation: don't call your mom to say you love her. You just scare the crap out of her. She'd rather not know what you've been doing until AFTER the situation is given the all-clear.
I also had a couple of brushes with, how shall I put it, non-law abiding citizens. Back in the heat of the gang wars, I remember covering a couple of funerals (we'd cover them as they drew heavy police presence for fear of retribution killings). At one particular funeral, I remember having a gun pointed in my general direction. If memory serves me right, it was the brother of the deceased who was taking issue with how close some of us media types were getting to the funeral home. We took that as a solid hint to back up a bit. I also know I was followed home by someone after another funeral. I proceeded to keep driving until it was obvious that he knew that I knew he was following me. But it was freaky to know he knew what I drove. I was later told he was only "sending a message". Yeah. I got that message alright. Cripes.
The stupid, STUPID things we do to get a story sometimes.
