Anatomy of a media circus

Last week I worked a day shift to cover the Ward Weaver sentencing hearing. I got there at 7am, and was ready to do battle. Not familiar with the trial?

Here's the short version: Two teenage girls went missing. The FBI arrested Ward Weaver, a nearby neighbor for their murder. Their bodies were found in his backyard. He continually made an ass out of himself in the press for two years, all-the-while claiming his innocence. He later pretended to be a retarded mental patient or something. Then he finally owned up to the murders - thus the media circus begins...


Every station brought at least two live vans to the event. By 8am there were more enough vehicles to haul every single person in Oregon City to their trailer parks and back like private limousines.


And where there's live vans, there's a million miles of cable. We had one square block completely covered. There was enough unmarked, untapped, and unsupervised cable to spawn dozens of "accidental falling" lawsuits.



Here's the wall of news photographers by ONE of the doors. There was a gang like this at every entrance/exit, ready to get some video.



Of course, my door was the one where everything happened. And, this blurred dumbass guy from another station made it a point to put his head right in front of my lens at all the wrong moments. Eventually, I just kept bonking him in the back of the head with my camera until he moved.



KOIN got new mic flags. They're enormous. You can't really get the scale down, especially since their mic flag is the furthest away in this shot - but, trust... they're HUGE.

That was about it. I shot a ton of video, and then had to run all over the country getting extra stuff. I had to do it though, I was on the Ward Weaver story from day one, and I had to see it through. Matter of fact, Later this week I'll write about my TWO interviews with the serial killer. Good stuff, I assure you.