On the news just now, there was a segment about the rising price of oil, and as part of it they showed a family of four (mom, dad, little boy, little girl… very average in every way!) clicking on random travel webpages and “making plans” to travel this summer. Apparently they also recently bought a Honda sedan instead of an SUV.
So… who are these people? Their names were given, but how does the news channel get these convenient little segment filler families? Do they just go to random people on the street and ask if they fit certain criteria? Are they actors, or employees of the news station?
Either way, it must be a weird set of questions. “Do you have kids? Plan to travel this summer? Did you buy a car instead of SUV? Can we film you and the kids and the house and the car and pretend you represent the rest of the country?”
The news story filler families are often recommended by the person who suggested the idea for the story in the first place.
In your example above, the genesis of the news story could have been a Honda dealer who suggested a story about how buyers are switching from SUV’s to smaller vehicles. The dealer would have suggested the reporter talk to several buyers. The reporter then could have asked the news story filler family what else they were doing to cut back. They’d say they were looking for a cheaper vacation, the reporter would ask them to act it out in front of the camera and a story is born.
Another route is the file footage library. Let’s say once that story runs, a few months later someone needs a shot of a family looking for something on the computer. They dig the old story out of the computer, clip out a few random seconds, and the NSFF lives for another day.
It often is just person-on-the-street. A common (universal?) tactic used by the location reporter is to ask many questions, often leading ones, until they are sure they have the sound bites that will work for the story they wish to construct. Notice that you never hear the question on the news, only voiceovers peppered with out-of-context responses.
(Anecdote alert.) I was recently waiting at the LAX baggage claim with many other delayed passengers. A camerman+reporter came in and picked an innocent young lady to interview. Her answers repeatedly reflected nonchalance about the whole travel mess, but they kept varying the pointed questions. Finally:
Q: [not to be seen on the news] Did the airlines ever offer you food or food vouchers for your trouble?
A: [No], they didn’t offer us any food or anything [etc.]
“Pure Gold!” the reported clearly thought. Off they went to make this poor gal look like what they needed for their story.
Sometimes it’s friends of friends of aunts of cousins of friends of the reporter. For instance, a colleague of mine used to be a newspaper reporter. An old reporter colleague of his, doing a piece on rising house prices in London (yes, this was a few years ago), is on the phone to him when I walk through the office. My colleague says to me, ‘hey, San Vito, you’re selling your house aren’t you? My mate needs a case study, can he come round to talk to you tonight?’
So, on the spot interview, photocall and next day I’m centre page of the Evening Standard.
Happened to me last Thanksgiving Eve. I was pumping gas when the news crew pulled up to interview me on a “Pain at the Pump, High Gas Prices” piece. Now, I hardly ever drive, I own a car but use it mostly for grocery shopping and weekend getaways. And it gets good mileage and, even lately, I can fill the tank for less than 25 bucks. And, not to brag, but I make a decent living and 25 bucks worth of gas is not some item I have to budget for.
The newscaster didn’t want to hear that, and seemed especially uninterested in the fact that I had spent 80 bucks on cheeses for Thanksgiving ( I was in charge of the appetizers). So I finally gave them something they could use about gas prices being ridiculous because at some point during the process I decided it would be cool to be on TV.
And it was, a suprising number of people I knew saw it. And they used my name during the piece which they hardly ever do.
It is probably still online, it was CBS local news in NYC and it would be in their archives on whatever the date before Thanksgiving 2007 wqs.
Heh. My friend is the photographer for our hospital and it’s funny to see all the places his kids show up in the children’s hospital publication materials.
Every place I’ve worked, producers and reporters will occasionally email everyone in company (or at least a wide swath) asking if we know anybody who is planning a trip, buying a house, quitting smoking, etc. If the cameras are in their house, and their story seems pretty generic, chances are they’re friends or family of somebody within the news organization.
The particular news segment that prompted this was pretty weird - talking about the record price of a barrel of oil, and how the PEI tourism industry can imagine that people won’t want to pay as much gas to come visit the island, and how this family from Toronto was asking their kids if they wanted to go to Boston or New York (really, is that a decision… or even a trip… to run past your 6 and 4 year old?) and oh, by the way, their car isn’t an SUV. It was just so random, and all in about a minute and a half.
I was asked once to do an interview that was just slightly less generic - it was on aromatherapy for children. A friend worked at a hospital’s complementary care pharmacy at the time, and the reporter called her for an interview and asked her if she knew any parents who used aromatherapy for their kids. My friend was my former coworker at an alternative medicine college knew that I had a cute kid, so she gave her my info. We went in to her pharmacy, the kid and I, and did an interview there after she herself did one with the same reporter. I never did catch it on air, but I did have people call me to tell me they saw it.