Extra! Extra! Why I'm Tuning in for Alaska Daily

About twenty years ago, a new TV show aired with a big-name star (whose name, ironically, I can't recall) about a newspaper reporter. I was a former newspaper reporter—I'd loved being a reporter (mostly)—and had been eager to see the show. But I ended up watching only a couple of episodes because the show was ridiculously over-the-top. I remember complaining about it to a friend (another former reporter). Why, I said, can't there ever be TV shows about journalists that are realistic? And he said, "You want to watch a TV show about taking notes in meetings or interviewing people on the phone?" He had a point (and he hadn't even mentioned the third prong in the triumvirate of fascinating things reporters do: type up their articles). While the articles reporters write may be interesting, the news-gathering process? Not so much.

Yet the new show Alaska Daily is proving my old friend and me wrong. Airing at 10 p.m. ET Thursdays on ABC, and available for streaming on Hulu, Alaska Daily is my favorite new show of the season. I've read reviews complaining about the show, but I'm going to focus on what I like about it: it puts a spotlight on the importance of local journalism at a time when so many newspapers are going under, leaving many communities without a watchdog of their powers that be.

The show has what I'm assuming will be a season-long arc, in which series star Hilary Swank, playing a big-deal NY reporter who's pushed out of her job, moves to Anchorage, Alaska, to work at the city newspaper (the fictional Daily Alaskan) to investigate the crisis of missing Indigenous women. Swank's character is teamed up with an Indigenous reporter, played by Grace Dove, and in each episode they make some (sometimes significant) progress. This is an important story line based, sadly, on real life. 

Each episode also has a stand-alone story line. These have included:

• A state official who misappropriated public funds
• A radicalized local man who is stockpiling bomb-making materials. (The story stemmed from a reporter interviewing the winner of the largest cabbage at the state fair, and you can't get more local journalism than that.)
• A beloved Anchorage restaurant owner selling out to a chain

Do I have issues with the show? Sure. For instance, the episode about the restaurant ended with the reporter writing a first-person article about the restaurant and why it was important to her and her family and why the owner had sold it. It was heart-stirring, but it blurred the line between news articles and opinion pieces—something that's already too blurry in too many people's minds. Nonetheless, I liked the episode. I've liked all the episodes, in fact, because they show reporters doing what reporters actually do: interviewing people, gathering facts, and making a difference in their community. (Wanting to make a difference, that's why everyone I knew who was a reporter went into the industry; it certainly wasn't for the money or for glamour.)

I like the reporters at the Daily Alaskan, even Swank's bristly character, who I assume will be toned down as the season progresses as she learns from her experiences and grows. I like the paper's newsroom, set in a strip mall because of financial issues (which is why they have a tiny staff, like so many real newspapers today that are struggling to survive). I like the paper's commitment to doing journalism right. 

So often these days, people see reporters as the bad guys. Alaska Daily puts its reporters in a positive light, and that's why I'm tuning in each week. I hope you'll check it out too.

***

While I have your attention, I'll be appearing this Saturday, Nov. 12th, at a Mystery Author Extravaganza at the Miller Library in Ellicott City, Maryland, along with fourteen other authors from the Chesapeake Chapter of Sisters in Crime. We'll be talking about our new books and stories published this year. Books will be available for sale. Click on either link in the next paragraph to get the full list of participating authors.

The event is free and open to the public (no matter where you live). It starts at 1 p.m. Eastern Time. You also can watch over Zoom if you can't attend in person. To register to attend, click here for in-person or here for Zoom. (Walk-ins to the in-person event are welcome if you decide at the last minute to attend.) The library's address: 9421 Frederick Road, Ellicott City, MD 21042.

The Journalist Detective

Maybe I should have known something was waiting for me when I was inspired to wear a button-down shirt and suspenders into my office. I was having writer’s block on my novel and a bad feeling when I took a pass over to the state police website in search of a story. Kassirer’s car had been found abandoned in the parking lot next to the Troop-C police barracks in the West End of Oneonta, five days after he was last seen by his family as he left his father’s funeral in Irondequoit, three days after he’d been reported missing by his employer, a drug rehab center in Brattleboro, Vermont, four days after he’d texted them to let them know he would be in the next day.

A bad feeling, sure, but I had to know where it was going to lead. I went into full detective mode. I called the Irondquoit police, who told me that he had last been seen checking out of a Binghamton hotel on the morning of Oct. 23, and that the last cell phone ping came from Oneonta, not far from where his car was located, at just before 4:30 a.m.

Meaning he checked out of his hotel at 3:30 a.m. The mystery deepened.

*

Out of curiosity, I did a Google Maps search of the area where the cell phone ping had been picked up. I saw a small path that lead into the ravine, near where his car was found. My heart sank. That’s where they’ll find him, I thought. I tried to ignore the feeling. Friends and family pleaded on Facebook for him to come home. That night, Ian and I drove out to Binghamton to buy Halloween supplies. I wondered if he’d gone into the nearby river or wandered into the woods. He wouldn’t be the first one. I lamented his disappearance and hoped he was okay.

*

The next day, a loose-lipped policeman in Massachusetts told me that a friend had picked up a ping from his cell phone in Rochester later that evening, meaning he got nearly 200 miles away from where his car was found, back towards where he had been. The police had searched his apartment and all they found in his room was a pile of blankets where a bed should be. His roommate was out of town, but someone was feeding the cat.

We went to press that night with no sign of him. I went to bed that night hoping that he would turn up in a hospital or rehab center, a man who just needed to get away from it all for a few days. But I’ve been at this business long enough to know that it’s so rarely the case.

*

My boss jokes, darkly, about my uncanny ability to read between the lines of press releases, an understanding of crime and human behavior honed from an adulthood of reading and writing mysteries.  On Wednesday, as I was getting ready for the Halloween parade, I got a call from Aga that his body had been located in “heavy brush” down the hill behind where he had parked.

Just as I had suspected.

But how did he get there? And why? I’ve written here before that being a journalist has all the questions of a private detective, with none of the release that come with the solving of a case. I can make the calls, but in the end, I have to just wait for the phone to ring and write down what is said on the other end of the line.

The autopsy proved inconclusive, but that the death was not being ruled “suspicious.” That means they don’t think he was murdered and there were no indications of suicide. Toxicology reports and additional testing take time.

Maybe I’ll have an answer for you next month.

Or maybe another case.

The Court Reporter's Tale

            One of the many problems I have with courtroom dramas (let me count the ways!  and I probably will, as time goes along) is that they ignore court reporters.  They're there, taking notes, saying nothing, and vanish whenever anything happens.  And yet they're a pivotal, important part of any court.  

            Now, I admit I don't know how it's done in New York City, but in smaller cities and rural areas, every judge has his/her own personal court reporter.  These are long-lasting relationships - some for decades.  Always symbiotic; sometimes strange; usually very professional; sometimes not; and once in a while the kind to make any court administrator wake up in a cold sweat, with the words "sexual harassment law suit" running through their minds.  And court reporters are human beings, too:  I remember one court reporter who started dating one of the witnesses, surreptitiously, who later turned out to be heavily involved with the drug-dealing defendant.  That got wild and wooly:  the court reporter got shot one night, and the only reason the court reporter wasn't fired was that the judge used all of his considerable clout to prevent it.

            Judges will use their clout to protect their court reporter, because one of the worst things that can happen to a judge, other than being caught in a motel room with a minor the day before elections, is to lose their court reporter of long-standing.  This is hell for a couple of reasons:  (1) most judges depend on the court reporter to keep track of  everything for them and (2) they're going to have to break in a new court reporter, and no one - let me repeat, NO ONE - wants to be around while that's going on.  (http://www.stus.com/stus-cartoon.php?name=Court+Reporter&cartoon=blg5807)   There's also the problem of getting transcripts, but we'll get to that in a minute.   

            It's the court reporter who makes sure that the judge's life runs smoothly.  First of all, he/she keeps the judge's calendar.  That's a lot of clout right there.  You want an early hearing?  Or a delay?  Does the court reporter like you?  Know you from Adam's off ox?  Let's just say that any smart attorney keeps in very good with the court reporter. (Note this website about "gifting" - http://promotionholdings.com/legal/court-reporter-gifting-and-lawyer-ethics/  Not that it happens very often, of course.)  By the way, when the judge calls everyone into his/her chambers for some reason?  The court reporter is there.  When the judge goes golfing?  Court reporter often goes along.  When the judge is in chambers, thinking?  The court reporter is the guard dog on the threshold. 

            Other things on a court reporter's plate:  making sure the courthouse is set up to the judge’s personal specifications.  There's a whole list of things, from proper beverage on - or under - the bench, to the various requirements of life in the judges' chambers.  Hint:  When the court reporter tells you the judge wants M&Ms or Diet Seven-Up or only blue pens, get it before the fit is pitched.  Often the court reporter is also the judge's chauffeur, driving them to and from court (and here in South Dakota, that could be a considerable distance for a traveling judge).  Court reporters are also secretaries, valets, servants...  There's a wide range of duties.   

            Oh, and yes, they also take notes.  Either the very old fashioned way by hand (Bogie movies), 

or the old fashioned way (stenotype machine), or the new paperless way. 

Now the court reporter is hired by the state or the federal government (depending on judge’s level); but the government doesn’t pay for the court reporters’ equipment (which costs about $4,500).  This means that while the court reporter is paid for taking down the hearing or trial in court, the actual notes technically belong to the court reporter, and he/she is paid again for actually transcribing them.  “Double-dipping!” claim the accountants.  “Pay for our equipment!” cry the court reporters.  “No way in hell!” scream the bureaucrats.   And the situation continues.  By the way, in case you're wondering, transcripts currently cost around $2.00-$2.50 a page, or $1.25 a minute of court time, whichever costs more.  A court reporter who works for an active judge can make a pretty good living.  It's the free-lancers who are often close to starving...

 Let's talk for a minute about the records.  The old stenotype machines have only gone the way of the dinosaurs fairly recently.  They produced a stack of paper, about 3 inches by eternity, on which the transcript is coded; this code is in shorthand, and each court reporter had his/her own shorthand on top of that.  It could be very hard for one court reporter to read another court reporter’s notes.  (And that wasn't entirely by accident:  it's called job security.)  In the old days, the court reporter would read the paper tape and type it on a typewriter.  Then a computer.  And, finally, software was developed that could take those notes and format them into a word processing mode, but, since this requires translation from the shorthand, even this gets tricky.  For example, the words “their”, “there”, “they’re” and “the air” are all coded exactly the same.  So the court reporter has to both program the software to match his/her shorthand, and also remember what was actually said in the hearing.  Sometimes they don’t.  Sometimes they're not around because they're retired.  Sometimes they're dead.  

And that's when it gets tricky.  Because not all court notes get/got transcribed right away, or soon, or at all.  Think of all the hearings and trials that are held every day in every town and city:  they don't get transcribed unless they're specifically asked for.  Joe Blow pleads guilty to a DUI and gets sentenced to, say, a year's probation and time served .  Jill Smith gets caught robbing a casino, and gets 2 years.  There's a dispute over the construction of a driveway that goes to trial.  (I remember congratulating the judge on his ability to sleep with his eyes open on that one.) There's a jury trial about a possible child abuse case, and the person is acquitted.   Or one in which they're found guilty.  The paper is there, on tape, on record - but it may or may not ever be transcribed, because the real reason for transcription is a dispute over the verdict. That doesn't always happen.  Or at least, not right away.  In my days with the circuit court, I remember seeing stacks and stacks and stacks of tapes, dated and semi-labeled, that had never been transcribed, and probably never would be.  

Unless...  And what if...