The big, sweaty fruit of my stress

It's been a crazy week. I got a call Tuesday from a man who sounded -- well, mentally unstable. He promised he could get Lance Armstrong to the university's Grand Opening in a few weeks and then went off about his connections with important media outlets. He'd been through our Web site and found the story I wrote last year about a scientist studying hippo skin secretions. I gave him some background and sent him on what I thought was his mildly mentally ill way.

The next day the calls started coming in. They didn't seem to care that this is essentially an old story. The Merced Sun-Star did it a year ago and I did it on the Web site in December. It's hot outside, and they want a story about a big, sweaty hippo.

I don't want to complain; publicity is publicity and that's what I'm supposed to be doing. When I'm not writing scripts and going to meetings, that is. It's just that right now there are a lot of scripts and a lot of meetings. And the scientist in question wasn't particularly available. He had to juggle and strain to make time for reporters. To some TV folks I just had to say no. I had to do a lot of back and forth calling to make the schedules work.

Here's one result. (Free registration required) It was on the front page of the Fresno and Modesto papers. There was also one TV story. My boss thinks it likely that it will get picked up by AP, because it's such a quirky story and the Bee reproter did do a good job with it.

I can't wait for the other TV crew -- the one I said no to -- to call me up today and ask why the other station got the story. I won't have a good answer for them. They were simply lucky enough to get onto the professor's schedule. That's all it was.

Moral of the story: just because you have a random caller who sounds pretty much crazy, doesn't mean he can't get things done. Take seriously. Check availability of parties involved before giving him background information on a story he wants to pitch.

So that's what my job is like. In between scripts and meetings, and illicit blogging.