As a general rule in this business, before you “air” a phone number, you always call it to check it first.
You want to make sure the person answering is the person you want viewers to call after a story.
I check every phone number before I air it.
So for my story today on the vandalisms of Kolton Karnes’ grave I wanted to use the Danville Crime Stoppers number in what’s called our “anchor tag,” or the final portion of the story the anchor reads after my package.
Well I called it (434-793-0000) and it nobody answered. No police officer. No machine. No nothing.
I was too close to deadline to investigate further, so I adjusted my script accordingly, taking the Crime Stoppers number out.
After I finished editing my package I checked the number again.
And again no answer.
Unbeknownst to me, an email from the Danville police ended up in our inbox at around 5:30 p.m., 30 minutes before the story was set to air.
It told us to use the Crime Stoppers number again if we chose to do so.
Well I’ve dialed the number three more times and still haven’t gotten an answer.
I’ll investigate this further when I come into work tomorrow and update you accordingly in my blog.
Posted by Scott Leamon at 06:10 PM. Filed under: leamon •
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