There was no mistaking the glint in his eye or the smirk on his face, but the local anchorman on the special report still had to lead with the obvious.
"We're working on a BIG (his emphasis) story tonight," he started with borderline glee.
For months, the local media has been milking every wink and nod in the story of a manhunt for a convict who escaped in April from county prison and wounded a state trooper in June.
The escapee's inventory of life skills appear to be stealing cars and escaping from prison (he escaped once before about 10 years ago). Yet, somehow he was becoming both Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid -- a folk hero seriously missing the hero part.
The trooper wounded in June recovered fully, but the State Police, like the media, responded with over-the-top over-reaction. Together they expended thousands of man hours and millions of dollars chasing one man, ratings and circulation.
Tonight they hit the jackpot, the anchor's smile said, while his words went on about "closing the net" and "staying tuned to this station" for their "exclusive team coverage."
It took him a lot of words to get to the fact that more two troopers were reportedly shot.
We heard that item first a few minutes earlier as a cut in to the Bills game. I ran to the computer to pull up all the local news websites. The first one I found headlined that one of the troopers was reportedly dead.
The location of the shooting was at or near the home of the escapee's relatives. A home where my cousin - a trooper - had been assigned for the past several months. She was just on the news last week as part of the team arresting the fugitives relatives at that house.
Time stopped.
My husband was power-surfing local channels when the report popped up with the just-short-of-grinning anchor. We agonized through every hyped syllable of copy that preceeded the information about the troopers.
The station went live to a fire hall several miles from the shooting and then to the regional trauma hospital where a trooper had reportedly arrived by helicopter.
There were no facts, only endless retellings of carefully couched conjecture -- all intoned with the gravitas of a slightly gleeful declaration of war.
The reporter at the trauma center said "he" referring to the trooper, but there was no way of knowing whether the pronoun was based on information or sexism.
I racked my mind to replay what my aunt had said earlier today when we talked about my cousin's schedule, but couldn't bring myself to call my aunt directly. I called her other daughter instead. No answer.
My husband called my aunt's house for me. I saw instantly the good news as the tension melted from his eyes.
It wasn't my cousin.
But both men shot were someone else's cousin, spouse, father, friend, brother, and/or son who just now became instead the "BIG story."
Some days I really miss being a journalist.
Today isn't one of them.

Copyright 2006 Judi Griggs