Steve Fink: Editor's Blog

Earlier this month I attended a panel at Manhattan’s Paley Center for Media called “Television Writing In The Internet Age,” a discussion that brought together four brilliant bigwig brains behind four brilliant bigwig shows: Rory Albanese from The Daily Show; Jim Downey from Saturday Night Live; Al Jean from The Simpsons; and Peter Tolan from Rescue Me.

 

I found the chat entertaining, yet very disappointing and unconvincing at the same time. It failed to live up to its name, and perhaps should have been re-titled as, “Television Writing, And Hey, Go Shove It, Internet!”

 

Apparently, digital media to these guys is about as useful as a “Don’t Honk” sign in Times Square.

 

The writers spent the better portion of their 90 minute banter downplaying the influence of the digital era and, at some points, unintentionally insulting enthusiasts like myself who hoped to gain some insight into how they’ve adapted to today’s overtly observant audiences. You know, those of us that just have to hop online and digitally dissect each and every second of each and every program through some online medium, be it as simple as an 80-character tweet or as complex as a YouTube video blog.

 

“The Internet, other than porn, is not a positive place,” said Albanese, explicitly stating that digital media simply “isn’t a factor in any of our heads right now.”

 

In other words, our opinions, our comments, our creative responses, make little, if any difference at all to these guys.

 

Really?

 

I attended the discussion with an old friend who also works in the business, a significantly less-enthusiastic digital geek than myself, but someone eager to learn from the talented group. She agreed with me that perhaps the biggest problem with the panel was that moderator Virginia Heffernan, a TV and digital content critic for The New York Times Magazine, struggled to connect with the foursome. She failed to engage them, though not without a lack of sincere effort, in a conversation that we imagined the rest of the audience had also come to hear: How do our digital voices affect you guys?

 

Yet time and time again, each writer adamantly declared: they don’t!

 

Downey even chimed in early on that he didn’t even own a computer. Why was he even there then?

 

Their negative response left Heffernan at times rambling on in rehashed attempts to get just one of them to jump up in epiphanous glee and praise our dear Web, beholding the digital era as an inspirational information renaissance. My friend and I squirmed in our seats in an uncomfortable awkwardness, tugging on our imaginary turtlenecks for air.

 

At one point, Albanese even cut the skeptical Heffernan off and joked, “Just tell us what it is you want us to say and we’ll say it!”

 

To Heffernan’s credit, her brightest moment came when she boldly stated she didn’t believe that our digital media – our constant Tweets, our Facebook fan pages, our viral YouTube spoofs, our radical blogs – didn’t at least “semi-consciously” affect how television programs are constructed today.

 

And I have to agree. Yeah, the digital era is loud, it’s obnoxious, and it’s unavoidable. If you want to look at it in a negative light, fine. It’s an obese hairy guy in a speedo sunbathing at the beach. It’s a meddling mother-in-law. It’s a backseat driver. Avoid it all you want, but today’s digital generation knows how to be heard, knows how to be seen, and any TV exec who opts to put the digital channel on mute needs to get with the times, or in this case, ‘net with the times. And ‘net over themselves.

 

Albanese described listening to digital media users as reading comment posts on blogs or viral videos and finding himself engaged in a frustrating waste-of-time comment war with an anonymous user masked under the screen name “Purplepantsguy.” I guess to him, at the end of the day, we’re all just random, useless, Purplepantsguys.

 

I don’t think social media users or online bloggers necessarily expect TV writers to write specifically to their liking or mold a segment of a program because the writer asked them to. Each exec agreed that they’re not thinking about viral videos when putting together a program, and yeah, that makes sense. But why not listen to your digital audience and somehow, some way, find a way to creatively respond and play along?

 

Can't you at the very least hire someone to do it for you? We know you've got the money. And we know there are plenty of digital nerds out there who would drool at the opportunity the spearheard a project like that.

We are seeing the change in newsrooms today. Our newscasts are interactive. We promote our Facebook fan pages for feedback. We ask our followers to tweet us and we, in turn, tweet them back. The voice of the audience is louder than ever, and digital media enables all of those voices to be heard. They’re there to be taken advantage of, to say to the audience, “Hey, we’re listening to you. And we appreciate you.”

 

In TV news, I think we’ve hopped on board, and I think it’s working. We’re still learning how to listen, and we’re still learning how to turn the digital voice into both a meaningful and a profitable one.

 

The panel was called “Television Writing In The Internet Age” for a reason. We’re busy behind-the-scenes too, TV execs. And we may not fully get it quite yet either, but hey, at least we’re listening. We have to.

 

Purplepantsguy wouldn’t have it any other way.

A week ago I had the privilege to take part in a panel at a media conference on Long Island to educate people from all walks of business on how to take advantage of Twitter and make it a beneficial device for marketing and self-promotion. A few minutes into speaking, I stopped mid-thought and asked those in the room by a show of hands who in attendance even had a Twitter account. Almost everyone raised a hand. Then I asked how many of those people actually use their accounts and were active tweeters.

 

The response wasn’t so hot. About a third of the original group raised their hands. Some people even did that half-arm-raise-shake-my-hand-a-bit thing where they’re either embarrassed to admit it or they weren’t really sure if they qualified, but didn’t want to feel left out.

 

If you’re one of those people who signed up for Twitter, took it out for a date, and didn’t call back afterward, I urge you to give it another chance. If anything, at least be good friends.

 

Facebook snobs seem most adamant about never allowing Twitter into their lives. There’s a kind of geeky reputation that follows Twitter, and I find so many people are embarrassed to take part in the nerdy hype.

 

Look, Facebook may be beautiful, but Twitter has a heart of gold. And it can be a gold mine for your business or even your resume just by being an active user.

 

For news organizations, Twitter is an arm that has an endless reach. It’s a viral video without the video. It’s a cyclical game of verbal dominos. It’s the 21^st century version of that old game “Telephone,” where you’d whisper something to a friend and they’d whisper it to someone else and the pattern continued on and on. Only now, there are millions of people playing the game, and millions of people eager to take part in the whisper.

 

An old journalism adage goes, “If it bleeds, it leads.” Welcome to 2009. If it Tweets, it leads.

 

Earlier this year it hit me that the site is far more valuable than the breaking news alert e-mail list we have on WCBSTV.com because those e-mails only go to the people who sign up. When we break news on Twitter, that bit of information we send out goes first to our group of followers, but then it quickly repeats – or in this case “retweets” – itself over and over and over again as word spreads and those followers tell their followers and their followers tell their followers.

 

And suddenly, people who don’t even live in the tri-state or follow WCBSTV on Twitter are following us and promoting us. It’s free interactive advertising.

 

For any business, Twitter can provide that same “word-of-tweet” advertising effect. It gives a company a way to give its clients a virtual hug and keep them warm and cozy. For any individual, it’s a brilliant way to network. To meet people from similar businesses and make contacts across the globe, contacts that could lead to jobs, clients, or recommendations.

 

All you’ve got to do is simply follow someone else, and boom, the door is open. A relationship is formed. It’s just up to you to schmooze that relationship into something worthwhile.

 

As you finish reading this, I’d like you to log off your Facebook account for a few hours. Don’t hesitate. Don’t be afraid. Facebook will be ready and waiting open arms for your return later. It will glow upon your latest status update. It will bask in excitement when you upload your Halloween photos.

 

Take Twitter for a spin around the block. Call it back in two days. You don’t have to love it, but at least give it a friendly hug. That embrace could be one of the most beneficial moves you’ll ever make.

 

In the coming days, if we haven’t already, we’re going to hear just about every witty balloon-related remark we can possibly imagine thanks to the Balloon Boy and his attention-whoring folks in Colorado. We’re going to hear about Balloon Dad’s inflated personality, and how his desire to be a reality TV legend stretched its very being before it burst in his face. We’ll learn how much hot air he and his wife were full of, and how they twisted and turned and shaped their kids into their own little balloon puppets.

 

And eventually, the story of Balloon Boy and the Balloon Family will float off into the clouds and quietly deflate, before we revisit the story again in a few years when the boy is older and filing for a divorce from his parents, and he wants to speak out about his circus act childhood on “60 Minutes.”

 

Oh, Balloon Boy. How you turned a quiet Thursday afternoon into a media frenzy unlike any other. And for what it’s worth, I commend you for that.

 

Yes, that’s right. I commend the Heene family. What we saw last week – and I say “we” as collective media personnel, and not the “we” who simply tuned into any news network and watched what we all thought was a 6-year-old boy sail away into the mile-high horizon – tested the athleticism of our news organizations that strive to finish first in the global marathon for information dissemination. 

 

Here’s a story that nobody knew anything about whatsoever. A story about a family that we’d never heard of, save for Wife Swap groupies. We had nothing to go on, but this video of a boy in a balloon, gliding hopelessly through the air to what many silently assumed was to be a tragic ending unlike any other.

 

Perhaps, for Richard Heene, the ending was tragic. For the rest of us, I’d say it was just an ending unlike any other. Who’s ever seen anything like this before? It was truly a test of the instant gratification demands that our followers, viewers, users, and fans ask of us as their sources for up-to-the-second news updates.

 

Look at how this story grasped our newsrooms, took over conversation on our digital media feeds, and drove traffic to our Web sites. For WCBSTV.com, most of our national stories are spearheaded by a national division that allows us to spend our day focusing on the local beat. But this story, I knew this story would be worth far more if I treated it like a local story and took the steering wheel instead. I knew from reading the bazillion Tweets on Twitter, from watching my friends on Facebook update their statuses as we updated them with information, from the simple fact that I, as an often unmoved and desensitized news editor, was crazy captivated by this story, that it would move the ticker if I made it the main course on our menu that afternoon. I could have sat there and let our national team take care of it all, but I wanted to take part in this marathon.

 

And I’m certainly glad I did. On an otherwise slow news day, our traffic soared as I updated our own story with every bit of information I could find. Our live video views jumped exponentially as I tweeted and retweeted about our live streaming, just throwing bits and pieces of new information I’d found along the way. That’s all anyone wanted that afternoon. Information. Nobody knew anything, so they’d take what they could get. And when we offered it, they ate it.

 

I knew if I sat there and just waited for a resolution, our users would look elsewhere for the latest bits of information. It was important to keep that timestamp on our story updated as often as possible, without doing a disservice to our users as journalists.

 

Sure, I probably could have taken advantage of a vulnerable mass audience and embellished for a bigger payout, sorta the way Richard Heene did. If I were a gossip rag site, I probably would have. But instead, I participated in the news marathon and joined along for the sprint. It was definitely worth the run.

 

On September 11, I blogged about how I wondered if media coverage would have been different today for a similar event because of our ability to communicate faster than ever before nowadays. Balloon Boy, in a way, tested that question of mine. Of course, this was nothing remotely close to a 9/11 type story, and I certainly have no interest in drawing a comparison to one of the worst moments in our nation’s history; but here’s a story that came out of no where to grab the eyes, ears, and keyboards of so many. We all jumped to our TVs, computers, and cell phones to talk with one another and share in this story. This stupid little story.  In a matter of minutes, a mass audience knew about a story that bore no impact on their lives. Millions watched an empty UFO balloon sway through the clouds for hours.

 

But because of the incredible ability we – the collective media “we” – have to gather and then tell a story today in a matter of seconds, it turned into one of the biggest media blitzes I’ve ever seen. It tested our athleticism and we passed with flying colors. And for that, for what it’s worth, I thank you, Balloon Boy.

 

We never forget. And we hold onto the hope that we, and the generations that follow us, should never have to experience a day like September 11, 2001 again.

We never forget. And in this era of digital media and technology, we shouldn’t worry that we will.

Thanks to the abundance of ways, means, and mediums in which we communicate with one another today, no one will ever lose sight of the impact that 09/11/01 made in our lives; the challenges we continue to face because of that day; and of course, those still profoundly vivid memories of where we were, who we were with, and what we did on that Tuesday morning.

At the time, I was four months into my first real gig as a sports producer at WJZ-TV in Baltimore, still living in my college apartment at the University of Maryland where I continued to take journalism classes. Of course, I’ll always remember waking up, walking into the living room and seeing my roommate Dave sitting on the edge of the couch, just a few minutes after the first plane hit. As he gazed at the television in shock, fear, or whatever it was he was feeling, I made a comment about a baseball game. He turned to me and said, “Do you have any idea what’s happening in the world?”

Later that day after I got into work, I was pulled out of sports and told I was going to drive a keg of gasoline to our reporters at the Pentagon. Just me, an early ‘90s Ford Explorer, and a red keg of gasoline.  That was comfortable. Incredibly, the security guards allowed me in with just my CBS identification card. I forget that before that day eight years ago, times were a lot simpler and we weren’t ready to be so untrusting of our neighbors yet. Today I’d be in a holding cell for sure.

For me, the most interesting part of that story, when I think back, is Dave’s comment. Did I have any idea what’s happening in the world?

No. I didn’t.  And not because I’d just woken up. But because those ways, means, and mediums were still pretty basic.

If you think about it, 2001, digitally, seems infantile to where we are today.

Don’t get me wrong, September 2001 was certainly no ice age for technology and digital media. We had mp3 players and text messages and tiny cell phones that played music or had built-in cameras. We had webcams and instant messages and DSL Internet. We had the World Wide Web and search engines and Matt Drudge. We had HDTV and digital cable and DVD players.

Yet, in September 2001, communicating lacked that charge of instant oomph. We had no iPhones and SmartPhones and GoPhones. The BlackBerry and the iPod barely existed. WiFi was a luxury. Wireless Internet on our phones may as well have been manned by turtles. Internet connections were slow and unreliable. Computers had less memory, less speed, less functionality.

Dare I say it: we had no Facebook. Twitter was mere onomatopoeia.

Digital media was in its awkward tween stage.

No, I didn’t know what was going on in the world –  not right then and there. Not like I would these days. That instant gratification I thrive on with my media outlets today, that need for speed, I didn’t have it. The need for speed back then came in a Starbucks cup.

I certainly hope we never have another 9/11. And perhaps one of the things preventing such an event is that very ability we have to communicate globally in a matter of seconds. To tweet, to update our Facebook statuses, to hold endless text conversations, to snap a photograph with our phones and send it out instantly, and to let each other know right then and there – whether we’re at home, work, or vacationing in Fiji – that we are doing something; we are watching each other; and we are paying attention and ready to let mom, dad, and Uncle Claude in the Netherlands know it.

No matter what the situation, good, bad, or catastrophic, we are a generation lucky to be able to have digital media to communicate with one another about it right away.

Today marks the eighth anniversary of a terrible day in our lives and our country’s history that we won’t ever forget. And in case you don’t believe me, open up your laptop, check your phone, sign onto Facebook, and update your TweetDeck. Someone out there will make sure of it.

A  young tourist couple from somewhere in Europe was waiting in line in front of me at Whole Foods last night. After we finally got onto the tarmac part of the line – you know, the organized area with the dividers that make you zig-zag around to save room and make you feel like you’re actually moving – the guy whips out a camcorder and starts filming.

Filming the line. The line at Whole Foods. The exciting journey to the register.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

I wondered, do they not have long lines in his country? Is this really memorable? Is organized mass chaos a concept only native to Manhattan Whole Foods? Or perhaps they don’t have waiting. They just don’t ever wait for things where he’s from. Could you imagine that, not waiting? Ever? Would you be so amazed by waiting that you’d film it?

“Hey guys, look at this. In America, they call this ‘a line.’”

“Whoaaaaa. That’s insane. America really is going down the drain.”

But really, who am I to bust this guy’s chops about filming something that's horrific enough just watching it live in person? After all, I enjoy watching the Orioles play on TV.

Still, I just can’t fathom why he’d want to watch that back home.

“Honey, let’s put on that tape I made of the line at Whole Foods. I’m feeling adventurous tonight.”

"You sexy man, you."

Tourists. They enjoy lines. They walk slowly. They love Statue of Liberty replicas. They wear multiple NYC logo items at once. They film everything. Somebody's gotta do all that. Bless 'em.

It was certainly odd, yet at the same time somehow appropriate, when I was washing my hands in a bar bathroom last night that a guy standing in front of a urinal suddenly blurted out, “Michael Jackson is dead, man. I can’t believe it. What do you think?”

 

Odd timing to share his thoughts and open up a discussion with a stranger, I thought. Of course Michael Jackson’s life was nothing less than odd, his death certainly stranger.

 

After I agreed and said it was quite shocking, a voice emanated from a stall: “That guy was a freak!”

 

Maybe he was talking about the guy at the urinal.

                                                                                   

I’ll forego the character assessment that will plague the Jackson obituaries in the days to come and focus on Jackson as a musical genius and cultural icon. I never rode the Ferris wheel at his Neverland Ranch and I didn’t attend his sleepovers, so I’m going to stray from the gray areas of his colorful life and talk about the other times that Jacko and I were tight. The good times with Mike.

 

Like the Bar and Bat Mitzvahs growing up.

 

Michael Jackson may as well have been a cantor for us young Jews blossoming into adulthood. “Bad” came out six years before my friends and I turned 13, but the album rocked the temple the way it rocked the charts. It was both heartwarming and scary to see dozens of ‘90s pre-teen Jews attempt to Moonwalk across the floor during a song that transcended cool; and our dorkishly-themed celebrations were often tailored after the King of Pop, complete with white gloves as party favors that would have printed across the knuckles something along the lines of, “Benji’s Bar Mitzvah Was A Thriller! 06/26/93.”

 

As my friend Hunter wrote in a text to me this morning, “A piece of my childhood died yesterday.”

 

Yes, through Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, Sweet 16 bashes, and high school graduation parties, Michael was there for all of it. Though none of us could ever truly master the Moonwalk as effortlessly as Michael, we could commonly be seen doing the “Running Man,” a favorite ‘90s dance of ours that has clear family ties to Jackson’s gliding strut.

 

Back in college, “I Want You Back” became a fun trademark for my fraternity, with each pledge class coming up with its own choreographed dance to the song –  as we donned 70s thrift shop garb – to be performed in front of all the sororities. The humiliation was bliss: the ladies loved every second of the show. As far as I know, it’s a tradition that’s continued through the years since.

 

MJ’s there for the important moments in adulthood, too. At engagement parties or wedding receptions, we still hear bands belt out their own versions of Jackson’s “The Way You Make Me Feel,” a song that really turns the dancing on. No champagne necessary. And of course, I can't even fathom how many fathers dance with their daughters to "I'll Be There" during those very same receptions, too.

 

Yet perhaps nothing is more impressive than Michael Jackson’s impact on Halloween. Michael found a way to make a holiday that’s supposed to be for the kids especially fun for the adults. I don’t know if he considered that when he filmed “Thriller,” but the song that spent 37 weeks at #1 will spend an eternity atop our Halloween playlists. No bar, club, or house party can commence a Halloween evening without blasting the song that turned into what I consider the greatest music video ever created.

There’s even that viral video of 1,500 jailbirds in the Philippines performing the “Thriller” dance. If you haven’t seen it, you should. Those guys don’t get out much.

 

Be it “Beat It,” “Billie Jean,” “Smooth Criminal,” “Man in the Mirror,” or “Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough,” all of the songs that ascended Michael Jackson to “King” status are still heard as if they’ve just debuted at our favorite local watering holes, our coming of age celebrations, our birthdays, our anniversaries, and so on.

 

Michael Jackson’s character, for the most part, died years ago. Through all of the legal issues, surgeries, and life choices that tainted his image, his music never aged a day. At least not for the good times in our lives.

 

Even in death, Michael Jackson will never cease to be the life of the party.

This weekend an old buddy of mine from high school tied the knot with his longtime girlfriend he met in college years ago. The ceremony took place outdoors on a balmy, may-as-well-be-summer evening beneath a picturesque sky blue ceiling in Mother Nature’s master bedroom: the Veritas Vineyard in Charlottesville, Virgina.

 

It was one of those ceremonies you talk about to others when it’s over. Not about the décor or the food or the setting. Not about the band or the bridesmaids. And not about the crazy grandmother who threw back 12 shots of Jameson and busted out a mean boogie-woogie-woogie during the Electric Slide. But about the actual ceremony.

 

You know, that sort of important part at the beginning of the night?

 

I sat in the last row of seats at this wedding and the amount of love pouring out of the hearts of my two friends and their families I swear at one point crept all the way behind me and gave me a deep tissue massage. It was so genuine and heartwarming and impressive that I felt truly honored just to share this moment in time with them. You could hear the whispers later on: “Adam and Kate Lynn will be together forever.”

 

Because these days, that’s what we tend to do. We judge. We predict. And we set an over-under.

 

And why not? We know our friends and loved ones well, we think. So in this geological era otherwise known as the Divorceous Era, we predict whether or not they’ll become extinct and we roll the dice.

 

How many weddings have you attended where you wonder just how in love the bride and groom really are? Where you later turn to a friend, check your side mirrors, and casually say, “I give them a year.”

 

Odds are, if that’s the case then the ceremony probably won’t be the topic of your Facebook status Or Twitter tweet.

 

I feel like the wedding ceremony is often overlooked these days and sometimes intentionally overshadowed by everything else going on at the wedding. And that’s also very telling. If the pretentious stuff is more memorable than the most important moment in the bride’s and groom’s lives, then that deep tissue massage may feel more like a nagging pinch on the shoulder.

 

We all run into the occasional situation with friends where we sorta wonder why they're dating the person they're dating. I mean, really, what are they doing?

 

And then we have those friends who we learn may be wondering themselves, but don't know how to get out of the hole they've dug. I once asked a friend months before his wedding whether or not he was ready for the big day. "There's no turning back now," he told me.

 

Yeesh.

 

Fortunately, I can report that friend is happily married and I don’t see any sort of mistake being made. In the end, wedding jitters are perfectly normal. And hey, a prediction is just a prediction. It doesn’t mean we’re right. Even the best couples can fall victim to the worst marriages.

 

Still, I wonder, how many couples these days foolishly rush in to tie a knot that’s bound to become untangled during a miserable day in court? I wonder, how many divorcees out there were once pessimistically whispered about by friends? I wonder, what's the average rate of an "I-told-you-so?"

 

Yes, we all have that happen at some point in life. And we don't really know how to tell them their significant other could perhaps be a significant awful. This was once apparently the case with a relationship in my life, some friends of mine later revealed after it had ended. It’s not easy to prevent an I-told-you-so from happening. We can talk about it with other friends. We can attempt to drop some hints. I would certainly want my friends to let me know if they saw something in my girlfriend that perhaps I've overlooked. In the end though, it's not up to my friends to mold my life and make my decisions.

 

We control our own destinies. And sometimes we rush into those destinies. We put our concerns on the shelf, or sweep them under our beds in hopes they don't turn into boogeymen down the road. We hope for the best.

 

We hope.

 

At my wedding, I hope my friends are whispering like they did at Adam and Kate Lynn's wedding and the many other ones I've been to where I knew the couple was meant to be. There's no hoping for the best at those weddings. It's a sure thing.

 

So now I put this question upon you: Should friends tell friends when they have concerns about a relationship or marriage? Or should they stay out of it and let the chips fall where they may? Leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Last night I went to the Yankees-Orioles game at the new Yankee Stadium.  Or, for me, the Orioles-Yankees game. In case you didn’t read the little box to the right, I’m a die-hard Orioles fan.

Yes, that’s right. I said it. I admit it. And I’ve never wavered from it.

So for that reason, I felt no shame in donning an orange Brian Roberts t-shirt to the game last night, as my friend Meredith, also from Baltimore, wore an O’s cap. Yeah, I’ve heard the stories about the guys who wear opposing team colors to Yankee stadium and leave with a souvenir black eye. I’ve heard all about it. And frankly, I really didn’t care.

To hell with those people. Go B-Rob.

A few friends had actually mentioned to me that this year’s crop of Yankee fans, the new Yankee fans for the new Yankee stadium, were much tamer than those of old. Even Mr. Yankee himself, WCBSTV.com Senior Producer Jeff Capellini called out his own for being as soft as cotton balls these days.

Well, not on this particular evening. Not in section 417, at least.

I’ve been to the old Yankee Stadium. I’ve gone to Orioles-Yankees games. I’ve worn my Orioles colors. And on this particular evening, I was heckled more than I’ve ever been and ever would have imagined.

It began as I waited at the Columbus Circle subway station for Meredith. As a D train approached and the doors opened to a slew of Yankees fans smushed together inside, a mild smattering of boos came from a few fans piled into the car. Pretty weak, I thought.

The train then took off, Meredith arrived, and within seconds another D train approached, this one with not many people on it at all. Sweet. Maybe this would be a good night after all. I’d already been to two games at Oriole Park this year, both against the Yanks, and both victories. And as they say, everything comes in threes.

Yeah, so it turns out it’s actually just most things.

The heat picked up when we arrived at the stadium. We decided to grab a couple cheap beers outside at one of the bars beforehand, and while there I ran into an old friend from college who I hadn’t seen since 2001. As we caught up, I tried keeping my attention on the conversation, but was distracted by a fellow cheap beer-drinker standing a few feet away pointing at me and laughing.

“Hahaha, nice Orioles team! How’s last place? Orioles suck! Orioles suck!” he repeated.

I kept my mouth shut and focused on the old friend and cheap beers. Fortunately, at that same moment, the O’s took a 1-0 lead after Brian Roberts scored in the first inning. The heckler stopped running his mouth and walked away in disgust. Take that.

And my fun ended right about there. We soon entered the stadium and literally the moment I emerged from the tunnel, fans began to boo us as we walked to our seats. I found some relief after running into another friend from Baltimore a section over in full Orioles gear too, but the good times and great taste was short-lived.

Back in my seat, I happened to be sitting behind a group of enthusiastic (read: wasted…really, really, wasted) Yankee fans of the meathead variety, probably college-aged, who quickly took offense to my shirt.

The drunkest one of them, a guy in a Jason Giambi t-shirt who’d been making gestures with his crotch to Orioles starter Brad Bergesen for a good chunk of the game, turned around and pointed to me and yelled, “An Orioles fan! A**hole! A**hole!”

And just like that, section 417 chanted this in unison. For several minutes.

I was flattered. I acknowledged my status and smiled, waved. I would have even signed autographs.

Soon Meredith and I went for food, and took off on our own separate ways as she searched for chicken fingers and I craved a hot dog. First I hit the men’s room, where I was instructed to urinate in the sink when I got in line inside. That’s where Orioles fans go number one, a fan told me.

Back in the hallway, I got in line for a dog and while waiting, a gentleman walked by me and screamed, “Nice shirt, fa**ot!”

Another followed suit, reminding me that I suck.

I found Meredith. We returned to our seats. We ate. I got about a bite and a half into the dog before some fans a few rows behind me took great interest in my dinner. A different comment for each bite.

“Brian Roberts loves foot-longs!”

“Brian Roberts takes it in the ***!”

“Brian Roberts like an**!”

“Brian Roberts sucks d**k!”

I’d feel more inappropriate writing this stuff if I didn’t notice the grown men and women with kids around me smiling and laughing as it went on. Are these the same people that gave John Rocker a lesson in manners when he made his infamous subway comments years back?

Eventually, the Yankees opened things up on the O’s and scored seven times in the seventh. The fans around us grew more raucous. The a**hole  chants returned, the reminders that Meredith and I sucked came in hoards. We figured that was our cue to leave.

Yankee Stadium was gorgeous, I must say. I liked it far more than Citi Field. That jumbotron? Insane. I'm glad they kept the look of the old stadium to give it that nostalgic baseball feel, while keeping in tune with the modern twang. Of course, if there is anything that hasn’t changed at all from the old stadium, it’s the reputation the fans bring.

The great thing about baseball stadiums is that each one has its own unique characteristic that sets it apart from the others. Be it the Warehouse and Boog’s Barbeque in Baltimore. The Green Monster at Fenway. The vintage ivy wall at Wrigley. The Philly Fanatic. And, perhaps sadly, the New York Yankee fan base.

I’m all for heckling and all for being heckled, it's one of the most fun parts of the game for fans; but there’s a difference between telling me that I suck and comparing my food to obscene descriptions of sexual acts and making sure everyone around you hears about it. Why is it appropriate to cross the line at a baseball game, whereas if this went on inside a subway car I imagine most people would find it far more offensive?

At what point do ushers step in and make that line tangible? Or do they at all?

I enjoyed the heckling, at first…before it got out of line. It's fun to be the center of attention just for wearing a shirt. Yeah, I'm wearing an orange shirt and I love one of the worst teams in baseball. I suck. You're welcome to remind me that much. It’s a part of the experience at Yankee Stadium. And I wouldn’t ask to change that for the world.

Stay unclassy, New York. But tone it down, if at least just a bit, please.

In a span of just a few odd days this week we have been frightfully reminded of both the fragility and the uniquely dark, cavernous depths of the human mind that will never be understood. Not by even the most gifted students of science nor by the most brilliant philosophers. The mind, it is a borderless jigsaw puzzle, and one that may seem so clear and simple and wonderfully fascinating to those who take it in and admire it. But when that puzzle extends beyond the line of sight of its admirers and falls into the trenches of the unknown, it becomes a new entity. It is a landlord, a slave owner, a puppeteer, and the human body becomes its tenant, slave, or puppet, unrecognizable and unbelievable.

Such has become the case for “Craigslist Killer” Philip Markoff and the “familicidal” maniac William Parente, two once-admired men, whose individual greatnesses were pawned off in cold blood. Whose minds morphed and swelled into unrecognizable and unbelievable entities.  So unrecognizable and so unbelievable that not even their loved ones, the most well-versed figures in the lives of these “All-American” men, could make the slightest bit of sense of their situations. Could look and say, “I saw this coming.” Could not wonder why.

We saw that in the words of Markoff’s fiancée Megan McAllister. In her assuredness of Markoff’s innocence and steadfastness to Markoff’s goodness. “He wouldn’t hurt a fly,” she said. She remarked about his inner-beauty.

And I wonder, has she accepted who he (allegedly) really is yet? I wonder, how do you do that? I wonder as she wonders.

We saw it in the faces of Parente’s friends. The next-door neighbor who told reporters about exchanging Christmas gifts with the Parente family, having barbeques, and watching the two girls grow up. You know, normal things. Evidence that this can’t be real. It just can’t be. Because, you know, we have this evidence. This evidence that William Parente is good.

The older couple who lived next door to my mother and stepfather about a decade ago were perhaps the two nicest next door neighbors I can recall having growing up. We washed our cars together. They brought food when my grandmother passed. They barbequed on their deck and smiled and waved and asked about me and my siblings when we happened to be barbequing too. They had a gorgeous Boxer and three kids, two of whom were married with good families of their own.

You know, evidence.

Because that evidence made it all the more shocking when I learned that their third child, a son, was the one in the news several years ago. The one on the front page of the Baltimore Sun. The one put to death by the state of Maryland for murder and rape.

But these people are good. Look, I have evidence. How could they have a son become so evil? How could they raise such a horrible person?

I ask these questions as Megan McAllister will probably always ask after Philip Markoff gets sent to prison likely for the majority of his life, if not its entirety. I ask as friends and family of the Parente family attempt to figure out how William, the once-beloved patriarch, fell victim, like Markoff, to the landlord, the slave owner, the puppeteer that was his mind.

In these terribly different yet sadly similar cases, we are indirectly and directly reminded that as good-natured as we may be and as well-wired as we seem, we are all so very fragile, susceptible to even the slightest cracks and chips at any given moment, ones that may shatter our very being apart. That may drag the mind into the unknown. That may mold those in your life you may know so perfectly well into the unrecognizable and unbelievable, so that you discover you don’t know who they really are, or were capable of becoming, all along.

We are packaged without warning labels, our contents so very delicate and flimsy, capable of being broken and spoiling.

I’m not trying to scare you. I’m just another guy trying to make sense of the senseless. I’m a disclaimer. A warning label. And I’m reminding you: Handle yourself, and each other, with care.

People often ask me if I find myself completely desensitized from the bad news that always seems to heavily outweigh the good in our newscasts each day. From the murders and the sexual assaults and the kidnappings and the abuse stories to the fall of the economy and the rise of unemployment and the foreclosures and the Ponzi schemes.

 

And the answer is yes, to an extent, it’s just work to us. I would venture to say most of us in the news business look at bad news as, well, just that. News and business. It’s our day. It’s our 9 to 5.

 

We worry more about what we’ll present and how we’ll present it to you than what the story means to us, if anything at all anymore. Because for us, we’re not a part of the news. The news happens to other people. We’re just the messengers.

 

In recent months, I’ve found myself feeling a bit differently. Credit Chesley Sullenberger for rescuing more than just the 155 people aboard the US Airways plane he landed in the Hudson River in January.  In a way, he saved the media for a while. He hoisted us from the funk of awfulness that tainted our holiday season and kept us hesitant about raising our champagne glasses to toast the birth of 2009.

 

For me, that bit of good news was a breath of fresh air. It re-sensitized me.

 

It shined a light on the importance of good news.

 

Of great news.

 

Don’t you hate when someone says to you, “I have good news and I have bad news. Which do you want first?” It’s such a pain in the tuch. Don’t you always assume the news in that situation, no matter which you take first, will likely stink? That the good news is just the bright side of the bad?

 

But we do that because we need good news. Because bad news touches our emotions. It eats at us. It crawls under our skin. It festers inside us. And it picks away at our nerves until it’s finally washed away by what else – good news.

 

All that being said, I don’t really have any kind of concrete anecdote here for you. I can’t tell you to go out and make some good news happen. I’d like for you to. That would be nice of you.

 

Oh, by the way – I do have some good news...and I have some bad news. Let's do the bad first. 

 

The bad news is today’s news will continue to be the news that you and I know so well. We’ll talk about the swine flu and the Craigslist killer and the Doomsday budget and the miserable economy. And for me it will be work, for you it will be news. Or dreck. 

 

The good news?

 

Summer is around the corner. It’s the slowest time of the year for us. It’s the time of no news. And as they say, no news is good news. Let’s hope.