Caught Cruising For Sex
Nothing says “sweeps” like exposès on vice. Fort Smith’s police department conducts frequent stings in public parks, trying to round up men who are trying to proposition other men for sex. We had an exclusive in this case, one of our photogs tagged along with the cops for a couple of days, and we did capture a few of these busts on tape. And, of course, every bit of it had to be blurred - we couldn’t show plainclothes undercover cops, we couldn’t show the perps, and we couldn’t show a nearby business that cropped up in some shots. This basically doubles the production time of the spot: setting up animation sequences to blur out everyone’s faces, and to have these blurs track with every person in the shot as both the people and the camera move, is an extremely time-consuming process, and after having to build an elaborate move to keep everything concealed even through a bunch of rapid zooms in and out, you’re about ready to smack somebody. Spots like this also have an additional audience that most promos for “tamer” stories don’t: everything has to be checked out by the station’s attorneys, and if they say something needs to be changed, then it needs to be changed.
Much to my chargin, this was the first of several spots like this in a one-month period. On one hand, stories - and promos - like this are good for the station. They demonstrate a capacity and a willingness to cover hard news (a phrase I really don’t want to spend too much time contemplating in connection with this particular story) instead of puff pieces about ear candling. But stacking a bunch of spots like this back-to-back in the schedule, all needing to be produced quickly by one person in the same shift as the usual nightly news topicals and nightly web content, is enough to make one think about running screaming into the night.
