I decided to attend my first “press conference” this past Monday. I wasn’t quite sure what I was getting myself into, but I can’t become a journalist if I don’t do journalist things—and at the time it seemed more proactive than watching TV in my bedroom. I found myself driving through the other side of this strikingly segregated southern town towards the sheriff’s office to meet with Leigh, the coincidental associate with me on this expedition.
We met in the parking lot and wandered into the belly of the beast together. I was going based on nothing more than a feed from the newspaper which said the sheriff was to hold a press conference at 2pm as I walked to the counter with my pathetically small camcorder bag in tow. The rather husky woman with a fantastic perm behind the glass wasn’t aware of any press conference in 15 minutes, but she diligently trudged into the deep recesses to formulate a reply for me. After the delivery of convoluted directions that sent us across the building (and from my personal experiences within the sheriff’s complex, closer to prisoner intake and the womans’ wing), Leigh and I soon found ourselves in a foul-smelling conference room with two middle-aged men in polo shirts as they stood behind a pair of broadcast cameras and gave us a quick look.
We blatantly looked like college kids—Leigh bearing a striking resemblance to that cute chick in that one movie, myself sporting a tacky “Mexico: I’m just here for the beer” t-shirt—as we walked to the back of the silent and uncomfortably large room to put our bags down. During the next 20 minutes or so, cameramen from every TV station from the area filed in, set up their respective cameras, and idly shared war stories from the field amongst themselves. Once I realized the camera’s were blocking my every view of the podium in the corner, we went to the 4th and final row of fold-out chairs to take a seat as I hit record on my camcorder and discreetly placed it on my knee.
The sheriff arrived fashionably late, greeted the lawyers with a warm handshake; the media with a cold handshake; and a random guy with a politician’s handshake before he took the stage. He apologized for his tardiness and made sure the dozen or so in the room were cozy before letting everyone know he wasn’t actually holding a press conference. The speech he read hit all the talking points one would expect to hear from this model city: family, friends, and Jesus Christ. The coup de gras came in the form of some crazy conspiracy against the masses involving the media.
The sheriff ended his speech by reading from the Good Book before he floated away into a dark abyss in the far corner of the room. This left me standing confused while the shuffle of cameramen picked up momentum and shook me out of my stupor. I was disappointed into shock by the lack of acquired knowledge during the half-hour spent in that room. Leigh shared this sentiment. We shuffled out with the mix of journalists into the hallway which led to the exit when Leigh caught the ear of a photographer from the newspaper. Stories that concerned a fraud scheme disguised as official state business were shared between the two of them. Only halfway listening, I eventually reeled from the sheriff’s barbaric waste of time before the photographer parted ways.
Leigh and I walked to the car where the camera was ditched and a cigarette lit in defeat. I had learned nothing about the story and nothing about journalism—then I saw the same random guy from earlier, another random old guy, and a familiar TV face setting up a camera. I threw my cigarette down in a panic and headed across the parking lot in hopes of watching a spur-of-the-moment interview but arrived to find nothing more than confused looks from all 3 men. We all shared a few awkward words and the TV reporter got some great footage of a brick wall. The lesson was complete and I decided to end this learning experience and head home. Leigh gave me a transcript of the speech and a hug. The press conference was over.
I replayed the video as soon as I got in the car, looped it as I sped home, and analyzed every word for some time afterward—the story never made sense. The sheriff had damning video evidence stacked up against his department and himself and only replied with a nonsensical response that pins any wrongdoing of his own actions haphazardly upon the lack of ethics practiced by a newspaper. Furthermore, the sheriff refused to speak to anyone before slinking back into his fortified compound to hide from the haze of reality. From a plethora of failed experiences, I can assure anyone that his method of defense isn’t the most effective.
The only other defense for the sheriff and his posse comes from the typical woodwork in the area. Those who live in a world where the incriminating video doesn’t exist are accompanied by crudely assembled responses from newspaper readers that insist the sheriff was simply teaching the boy an old-fashioned lesson in a room that smells like the YMCA locker-rooms. Along in the mix of madness are those angered at the sheriff who want him to reimburse the family of a single victim. Spare the shackles, launch the lawsuit: no better device to teach the sheriff a not-so-old-fashioned lesson in a courtroom that smells much nicer. In the end, his paycheck as been paid by the voters of the county. That story makes sense, but one crucial annoyance continued to linger.
The sheriff mentioned that the newspaper had put the boy “in danger” when the identity of said boy was released. I began a quest to find the truth behind this claim. My frustration with this led to a #WINNING moment when my total time spent behind enemy lines culminated into an epic blunder of menial proportions—I was a guy without a chance in the fight against this beast as the shank instinctively lunged forward. I used the sheriff’s method of defense and went slinking back to hide from the haze of reality. The real story was so close, but all of the wounds sustained were enough to cause a failure of the task at hand.
It always comes so close to making sense, but then I find out I have 3 tests in a few hours. Back to the haze of reality.
-MDS
News Writer and Reporter | Ardmore, Oklahoma, USA
