Chapter 17/Working with TV photographers

I've been fortunate for my entire television career to be virtually my own boss. Most of the time in TV news, jobs are specialized with assignment editors, producers, tape editors, etc. But I did all those things myself to make sure it was done my way.

I did, however, depend heavily on photographers and shared a lot of windshield time with them. Photographers never get much credit for the wonderful jobs they do.

News photography can be hazardous. For example, climbing up a fire lookout tower with a heavy camera for a better shot or filming a fire or a disaster at close range.

A photographer at my station at KDFW-TV in Dallas was killed when a gas station exploded during a fire. Another KDFW photographer and assignment editor Buster McGregor died when a news chopper crashed.

Most photographers are braver than I am. One of my photographers covering a flood in Green Bay put down his camera, jumped into a river and rescued victims. He is now the news director at the CBS TV station in town. In addition to being brave, Lee Hitter is also a very nice man and a loving father.

Two very talented photographers I worked with lost their nerve momentarily at crucial moments. In Dallas, I was going after a rip-off appliance repair company that had shot-gunned the yellow pages with 21 listings using different names. Most of the listing ads used one of three telephone numbers. So, if you needed someone to fix your stove or refrigerator, you would probably get this company that would overcharge you for unnecessary repairs.

I took a young photographer with me to ambush the owner of this company. We walked into his shop and confronted him on camera. But when I started accusing him of cheating consumers, I noticed my photographer had not switched on the camera as he was supposed to when we walked in the door.

"Turn on the camera," I commanded and continued confronting this big man, who was the owner of the company. But the photographer seemed frozen. I found myself arguing with both of them: "Turn on the camera, damn it." Turning back to the store operator, "Why are you using phony names in the yellow pages?"

Finally, the photographer turned on the camera, and I got what I came for.

On the way back to the station, the photog told me he had been scared to death and asked me not to tell anyone. I didn't.

For a human-interest story about a man donating a kidney to his brother, a photographer and I documented the transplant at University Hospital in Madison, Wisconsin.

I asked the photographer to tape the precious kidney being taken from the removal operating room to the recipient operating room.

As a surgeon carried the kidney in a stainless steel bowl, the photographer backed into a wall and jostled the surgeon who almost dropped the kidney on the floor.

The famous transplant surgeon didn't appear bothered by what happened. But the photographer stopped what he was doing and started cursing me for putting him in this precarious situation. He got over it quickly and continued his excellent work.

Everyone in the operating room cheered when that transplanted kidney started making urine. The photographer captured it on tape.

One of my Green Bay photographers also piloted a news chopper. I got him in trouble when I asked him to pick up a little boy dying of cancer and take him to Bay Beach Park where his class was having a field trip.

City officials bawled us out for landing in city neighborhoods, but it was worth it.

"It's the best thing I ever did," said the little boy as we took off from the park after he saw his friends. He died a few weeks later.