KCRA & the Safeway Meat Scandal (2)
Most of the news staff still doesn't know all that went on.
The story was discussed several times in the middle of the newsroom, but local newsrooms tend to be noisy, crowded places where everyone has a deadline and hardly anyone bothers to listen to all the chatter going on around him.
I was just a field reporter. I got in on the action because I happened to be handy when the story started to break.
"Pick up 71," Pete Langlois said.
Pete was our assignment editor. He said our Washington correspondent was on the line. Supposedly all I had to do was take a message.
But the Washington correspondent launched immediately into suggestions on how I might want to "package" what she'd just shot. She had some film of California Congressman Jerome Waldie making accusations about the way Safeway supermarkets labeled their meat. I might want to shoot additional film of a Safeway meat counter, she said. Use it before and after the Congressman's sound cut. The "package" arrangement would enable us to provide more information than just Waldie's "talking head."
Her film was being shipped by air. Yes, Pete had the flight number and arrival time. Before I could ask her more about the Congressman's charges, she'd gotten off the phone.
