Black Friday, Black Asphalt

Day 12 of 17 found me working dayside again and standing out in the parking lot of my local mall. It's Black Friday, so we had to do a story on shopping. The problem was that another crew was already doing shopping. Lizzie was counting on doing the shopping story herself, and her only other idea was to do a local story on the X-Box 360 overheating. The producers didn't like that, so Lizzie quickly found herself at their mercy for an alternative.

And what did one of them come up with for us?

Parking.

Our assignment was to stand out in the parking lot and get people to tell us what a tough time they had finding a place to park. "Find somebody who had to fight for a space, or maybe somebody who got a space snatched out from under them," the producer instructed. I may be new at this, but that really didn't seem like a great story to me.

It got worse. Our mall has a HUGE parking lot, with a multi-level deck off one end, built by the developer in anticipation of the hordes of people who would stay home to shop instead of traveling to a larger city not too far away. He anticipated incorrectly. This place was never able to attract the right stores, so people still drive out of town for big shopping trips. Back here, they never fill that lot. There are actually weeds growing up through the asphalt in the outer fringes. There were even spaces still left in the deck.

Thus, nobody had any trouble finding parking, and our story didn't exist. Lizzie called in to let the producer know what we had. I only heard Lizzie's half of the conversation.

"No, we don't have that... Because the parking lot's not full... No, it's not full... No, they're just driving to the empty parts... No, that's not happening... We did talk--... We did--... We DID talk to people... No, they aren't... Okay, but that's not going to happen... Because people aren't FIGHTING over spaces!... Okay, we'll do it... I said we'll DO it!"

"That didn't sound good," I said.

"Get this," she said. "She wants us to set up the camera over by the entrance and wait to get video of people fighting over spaces."

"But they AREN'T," I said.

"I told her that, but she doesn't believe me. She's convinced nobody went out of town to shop because of the gas prices. She thinks everybody HAS to be here."

"But the gas prices went back down," I said. They have. A few weeks ago we were running almost $3 a gallon; now we're at $2.19.

"Try telling HER that! She's got this picture in her head of people running down little old ladies to get spaces. She said she already has the parking story in her rundown, so we have to do it no matter what. "

So we asked a bunch of bewildered shoppers whether they had trouble finding a parking space. They looked at us like we were idiots. I can understand why. Then we turned in a boring two minute story about people having no problem whatsoever finding parking. Lizzie strung together eight different people saying they had no problems. I wallpapered it with people driving through the parking lot and parking in an orderly manner.

It was one of those stories I imagine the folks at home watching and saying, "What the hell was THAT all about?" I've seen these stories myself on television and just thought the reporters were stupid. I didn't realize how this kind of thing happens.

I feel bad about that now. So to all those reporters I've called morons through the television screen over the years, please accept my heartfelt apology.