I get a kick-out of television news station and their promotional commercials where they attempt to convey to you how hard they are working to bring you the news. They do this with a montage of videos of anchors and television reporters walking around the newsroom (sorry, information center) really fast – speed-walking fast. (That's the 7News reporting team in the picture). And while they are walking, they are also talking (impressive in itself). As they are hustling around the office, they say things to you like "We're committed to bringing you the news" or "Where's the shitter? I had bad seafood salad." That would constitute a bad case of the runs. Sometimes in their haste to walk around fast and tell you how why they are walking fast, they very narrowly miss running into one another. At which point, another reporter rushing to cover the first two reporters colliding would trip over them and knock over a morning show anchor filling up a hot cup of coffee. No worries, the anchor would just smile and say, "Ow, that burns. Feels like a Monday. (Cue canned applause) Often, they stop walking and talking to sit at a desk and talk really fast on the cell phone about a story they are working. "That's right, Johnson, I need the footage of the penguin with a slightly discolored left fin for the 10 p.m. open tonight, dammit!" This is all supposed to inspire me that my television news team is working hard for me. I would prefer to see them interviewing somebody or calmly sitting at a desk, collecting facts.
All this running does is make me dizzy. It's a wonder they can chain these people down to conduct a newscast. But, in my efforts to keep up with the latest trends, I'm now going to require my reporters to write their stories as they pace back and forth across our information center. It only makes sense.
