been settled 150 years ago by sons of Ander, sons of John, and sons of Carl. My hunch is 25 percent of Minnesotans have last names ending in “son.”
I couldn’t find a phone listing for Anderson in Rochester, so I asked Xiong to run the name through his computer databases. Cops like to keep their home addresses and other personal information private. But Channel 3 had copies of state driver’s licenses and vehicle registrations. If those didn’t work, we could fall back on the hunting and fishing license files. Finding cop addresses in that bunch was like shooting fish in a barrel; cops always use their home address rather than risk their hunting license renewal going astray. If we still came up empty, we could search for Officer Anderson in our criminal records database. I hoped that wouldn’t be necessary; he’d be in a foul mood if he was in jail.
“First I will run death records to make sure he is still alive,” Xiong said. “If I find no trace of him there, we will look in snowbird states.”
Seemed as good a plan as any. Just then I heard my name paged over the newsroom loudspeaker. “Riley Spartz to the news director’s office.”
I didn’t think I was in any trouble, but I’m often the last to know, so I headed to Noreen’s office to see what it would take to get her off my back this time. Turns out, she just wanted more details on the dog story.
“I’ll level with you,” I told her. “I’m not saying it’s not a story. I can make it a story. But our tipster seems a little flaky.”
“In what way?”
“A little doggone crazy.” I filled her in on Toby Elness’s domestic zoo.
“He sounds like he has a good heart,” she said. “I hope you’re not judging him harshly because he cares for animals.”
“Not…at…all.” I stammered the words as I tried backtracking.
“Excuse me.” Noreen’s secretary, Lynn, interrupted us on the speaker phone. “The president of North Country Bank is on the line. They caught Mike Flagg going through their garbage dumpster.”
“Not again.” Noreen put her hands over her face. “Put him through.”
Flagg was last year’s hotshot hire: smooth, handsome, with the kind of year-round tan only money can buy. From what I’d seen of him on air, he was a cross between a tattletale and a playground bully. Most irritating was his tendency to do crime victim interviews with an exaggerated “let me feel your pain” gimmick.
He was careful on air to refer to himself as “Michael” Flagg. “Mike flag” is TV jargon for the 3-D plastic station logos clipped onto microphones and shoved in the face of whoever is being interviewed. News folks generally dislike them because they focus viewers on the station logo rather than on what is being said. Promotion folks generally like them because they focus viewers on the station logo rather than on what is being said. The stations here in the Twin Cities used to have a gentleman’s agreement of “no mike flags” at news conferences to avoid a mishmash of channel numbers and network symbols. One of the first moves Noreen made as news director was ordering flashy new mike flags for each of the photographers. Our competitors quickly followed suit, so a mike flag war, with each more cheesy and obnoxious than the next, is currently being waged in the Minneapolis–St. Paul news market.
Noreen grimaced as she took her phone off speaker mode. “Hello, Mr. Kahn, how are things at the bank…I’m so sorry for your inconvenience…Yes, I’ll speak with him…I understand completely…Thank you.”
“Dumpster diving?” I asked.
“A reporter at his old station did a story about financial institutions not shredding sensitive customer records. He’s trying to see if it’s a problem here.”
“It was a problem here,” I told her, “until about four years ago when I first did the story. Then everybody else in the country copied it. Now it’s not such a big problem.”
“Oh.” Noreen seemed startled,
I couldn’t find a phone listing for Anderson in Rochester, so I asked Xiong to run the name through his computer databases. Cops like to keep their home addresses and other personal information private. But Channel 3 had copies of state driver’s licenses and vehicle registrations. If those didn’t work, we could fall back on the hunting and fishing license files. Finding cop addresses in that bunch was like shooting fish in a barrel; cops always use their home address rather than risk their hunting license renewal going astray. If we still came up empty, we could search for Officer Anderson in our criminal records database. I hoped that wouldn’t be necessary; he’d be in a foul mood if he was in jail.
“First I will run death records to make sure he is still alive,” Xiong said. “If I find no trace of him there, we will look in snowbird states.”
Seemed as good a plan as any. Just then I heard my name paged over the newsroom loudspeaker. “Riley Spartz to the news director’s office.”
I didn’t think I was in any trouble, but I’m often the last to know, so I headed to Noreen’s office to see what it would take to get her off my back this time. Turns out, she just wanted more details on the dog story.
“I’ll level with you,” I told her. “I’m not saying it’s not a story. I can make it a story. But our tipster seems a little flaky.”
“In what way?”
“A little doggone crazy.” I filled her in on Toby Elness’s domestic zoo.
“He sounds like he has a good heart,” she said. “I hope you’re not judging him harshly because he cares for animals.”
“Not…at…all.” I stammered the words as I tried backtracking.
“Excuse me.” Noreen’s secretary, Lynn, interrupted us on the speaker phone. “The president of North Country Bank is on the line. They caught Mike Flagg going through their garbage dumpster.”
“Not again.” Noreen put her hands over her face. “Put him through.”
Flagg was last year’s hotshot hire: smooth, handsome, with the kind of year-round tan only money can buy. From what I’d seen of him on air, he was a cross between a tattletale and a playground bully. Most irritating was his tendency to do crime victim interviews with an exaggerated “let me feel your pain” gimmick.
He was careful on air to refer to himself as “Michael” Flagg. “Mike flag” is TV jargon for the 3-D plastic station logos clipped onto microphones and shoved in the face of whoever is being interviewed. News folks generally dislike them because they focus viewers on the station logo rather than on what is being said. Promotion folks generally like them because they focus viewers on the station logo rather than on what is being said. The stations here in the Twin Cities used to have a gentleman’s agreement of “no mike flags” at news conferences to avoid a mishmash of channel numbers and network symbols. One of the first moves Noreen made as news director was ordering flashy new mike flags for each of the photographers. Our competitors quickly followed suit, so a mike flag war, with each more cheesy and obnoxious than the next, is currently being waged in the Minneapolis–St. Paul news market.
Noreen grimaced as she took her phone off speaker mode. “Hello, Mr. Kahn, how are things at the bank…I’m so sorry for your inconvenience…Yes, I’ll speak with him…I understand completely…Thank you.”
“Dumpster diving?” I asked.
“A reporter at his old station did a story about financial institutions not shredding sensitive customer records. He’s trying to see if it’s a problem here.”
“It was a problem here,” I told her, “until about four years ago when I first did the story. Then everybody else in the country copied it. Now it’s not such a big problem.”
“Oh.” Noreen seemed startled,
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