A Tribute to the Domestique

In the TV News business there are so many tough jobs in which hard work often goes unnoticed. One of these jobs is commonly known as "The Desk" or the "Assignment Manager."

Simply put The Desk (it deserves capitalization) is like air traffic control for an airport, the nucleus of a cell, or the nerve center of a busy transit station. One of The Desk managers, aka assignment managers is my co-worker Mike Anderson who compares his role to that of a Cycling Domestique. (See Above picture of Mike.)

According to Wikipedia, a domestique is "a cycler who works solely for the benefit of his or her team and leader" during a race. The domistique serves as the windbreaker for the main racer, pumping out energy and reducing drag so the racer can burst into the front at the last minute.

Mike is one of those people who can listen to three police/fire/county scanners at once and make out exactly what's going on in the streets. He knows ten code like a regular officer, if not better. I've seen Mike distinguish complex scanner chatter into a comprehensible event. For example, I'll hear an officer squawk over the scanners, "yeah, we got a 10-31, going on with a 10-21, involving a 10-6." (I made up these numbers, so please don't scrutinize the ten code translation).

Mike will then translate for all of us, quickly: "We've got a woman on fire, wearing a red wig, running around a McDonald's with a stolen bottle of booze."



I don't know how he does it. I think he has a scanner in his head to be honest. He also knows every street corner in the city, how long it takes to drive there, and what landmarks are in the area, and what past news events happened there. Mike is the perfect desk, or should I say, newsroom domestique--a walking, talking Albuquerque map. Mr. Garmin (if he exists) would be impressed.

The Desk is a tough place to be, and most certainly the loudest. The constant chatter of the scanners, the never ending phone calls from reporters, viewers and somtimes lunatics can dull the ear drums and drive any switchboard operator insane.

That's not the only racket going on. There's also the never ending badgering from producers wondering what photographer is where and if a live unit can hit from a certain part of town.

This never ending noise gets worse during breaking news and about an hour before the first newscast hits. God help us when breaking news hits at this time.

If we could look into the brain of a Desk person, I think the brainwaves would baffle modern science. They have to handle so many things at once. Multitasking is an understatement. Try having a conversation with three people at once. One guy in the newsroom is yelling at you for not getting a photographer to a certain place, another guy on the phone (reporter) is asking you where the heck a photographer is, and the other guy on the other phone is actually the photographer wondering where he or she needs to go next.

So here's to you Desk folks and Mike (cue Bud Light commercial music). You guys do a good job reducing all the drag for the newsroom. You guys are all 10-4 in my book. Now where's my photographer?
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