Sitting on a story

Used to be that anything that wasn't "off the record" was fair game for reporters. These days, the rules seemed to have changed, but they have nothing to do with things being on or off the record.

These days stations are often tailoring their news according to their political beliefs. Stories that are the lead on one station aren't even mentioned on another. Surely there aren't that many exclusives going around. But it is clear that in many cases if a story doesn't "fit" the station's "agenda" then the story doesn't exist. Once, before I was calling the shots, I saw a story killed that could have affected a Presidential campaign.

Someone asked me recently if I'd ever sat on a story. I thought of two occasions, neither involving politics.

I once covered a luncheon that featured a speech by a man I'll call a national hero. You'd know the name if you heard it. Anyway, when the guy delivered his speech he was so totally hammered he didn't make any sense and slurred his words badly. The hosts politely escorted him away. We didn't see any point in ruining the guy's reputation, so we didn't include any sound bites in our story.

On another occasion I was interviewing a famous actor who would later be diagnosed with Alzheimer's. The guy made no sense either, and we saw no reason to tarnish his image.

In those two cases, "sitting" on a story didn't affect the general public. Politics is a different animal. The public deserves to know what you know. It is not your job to decide what the voters should know and what they shouldn't.

And just to let you know the public will make up its own mind anyway, here's one from the archives. One day we went to pick up a vo/sot with a guy who was announcing his candidacy for the school board. When I asked him what he would do if elected, he said, "I have no idea. I've never been to a meeting." We ran the piece, of course.

He was elected in a landslide.