Custodians and Newsroom Secrets

PODER Y FUERZA. POWER AND STRENGTH.

I'd interviewed for a bilingual crime reporter gig at the local ABC affiliate in Austin, Texas. 

Disney's "Aladdin" was the number one movie of the year, and my second child, Marisa, was born in the capitol city where fields of blue bonnets exploded brilliantly almost every day and nearly everywhere. 

I sat in front of five managers at the same time in one room for more than an hour. They'd seen my demo reel and asked specific questions about my work, but were even more curious about why people, particularly police, spoke so freely with me on and off-camera.

Finally, the news director stopped dancing and got to the real question no one would ask; "If we hire you, how can we know that you'll NOT promise anything to police - AND that you won't protect them?"

With her newsroom lieutenants sitting side-by-side and all eyes on me, I gave the next-to-biggest-boss a direct, honest, and unabashed answer.

"You'll have to hire me to find out."

Within minutes the interview was over and Mike George, the assignment manager, was driving me to look at apartments and then to Austin-Bergstrom International Airport to catch my return flight to Richmond, the capital city of the Commonwealth.

On the way, I asked the obvious question. 

"So, do you think I got the job?"

Mike smiled slyly, "I think that last answer of yours sealed the deal."

A few days later I was offered the gig and my wife and I agreed, "Let's take it."

In short and discriminate order, cops, criminals, and wannabes from both sides were speaking to me privately and under only one serious stipulation; no sourcing - ever.

The job quickly put me in the middle of hard and deliberate conversations with my managers who wanted to know how I was getting critical and correct information about local law enforcement. I was getting "too close" to my sources and bosses began pressuring me to reveal who they were.

Predictably, the station's general manager finally called me into their office and sat behind a large mahogany desk with papers scattered strategically across the top. I was asked, among other things, why I refused to share my sources with news managers. "That is not an uncommon practice," they said and then waited for my response. I'd sworn to keep those names private I told her and known only to me. She simply stared back. 

Her office was large and exceptionally clean, and, thanks to janitors, smelled perennially of aromatic lavender. Custodians who scrubbed, polished, vacuumed, and collected trash several times a day, everyday, from every single room and office on Steck Avenue.

The mostly Mexican crew spoke perfect Spanish, spotty English, and confided in me about their families, weddings, and funerals. They shared photos of Quinceaneras, the coming-of-age celebration for Latina's turning fifteen and being recognized for the first time as young ladies. 

"Somos fantasmas", one trash man told me. "We're ghosts" that double as janitors he said. They wandered unseen, unnoticed, and rarely, if ever, were recognized by the staff for the dirty and exceedingly important work they did.

Fantasmas, it turned out, who'd unwittingly discovered station secrets.

"Encontramos documentos", they whispered. While collecting trash from the building they'd discovered sensitive documents and partially-shredded memos containing off-the-record, and potentially embarrassing, confidential information about advertisers, staff, and yes, reporters too. All that information had been tossed in the trash, mere afterthoughts by reporters, staff, and managers. 

Janitors that moved invisibly and said they could go days without a "Hello", or a "Thank you", or even, "Excuse me." They pushed carts with bottles of bleach, trash bags, and rolls of super-soft, two-ply toilet paper. 

They'd invite me into their homes on weekends and we'd shared cafe con leche - Latin coffee, where milk is used instead of water. 

Sometimes they laid reams of collected documents on the kitchen table. "Everyone needs seguro", they said in Spanglish. "Yes", I agreed, "everyone needs insurance."

Late one evening, Tomas, a senior custodian told me about "el boton". It was installed directly underneath the general managers polished credenza. "Esta a la izquierda", he said, "It's on the left." He found the button one evening while on his knees wiping down the expensive desk. He polished the mahogany until, "Se ve espectacular!" The father of six was proud and gave the desk his best effort each day, even if his shoulders were habitually sore.

Then Tomas told me about the chairs positioned directly across from the desk - "Son mas bajo", he said. The chairs, intentionally or not, were shorter than the general managers. Whoever sat across had to elevate their eyes or turn their chin up, if only slightly, to make eye contact. 

"Es poder y fuerza", Tomas said. Power and strength.

The GM was tall, blonde, and direct. She was at the top of the stations food chain after decades of outmaneuvering competitors in the hardscrabble world of newsroom politics. Her office was like most general managers and located on the other side of the building, intentionally secluded and away from the hectic newsroom. 

Again, the GM insisted that it WAS her business to know who my confidential sources were. The conversation quickly flat lined, actually it never took off. And my six o'clock story was still scribbled horribly on my notepad, not typed neatly into the stations Inews system.

Admittedly, and without much decorum I stated the obvious; our conversation, I said, had gone nowhere. I asked if there was anything else? Her silence and her stare said it all. 

My next question caused her eyes to pop open, "Could you please push the button under your desk and open the door so I can leave?"

Calmly, her left hand slipped under the behemoth bureau and a second later I heard a distinctive "CLICK." The electronic signal released a lever, the latch unhinged, and the door unlocked then partially opened. I stood up, said 'Thank You" and walked out. We never spoke again. 

Remember those people who clean your newsrooms. They're someones' parents and someones' son or daughter and they move like phantoms you may never notice. They know where the buttons are and they quietly collect trash that may become insurance.

Be kind.

Orly Salinas is a longtime journalist who has worked at NBC, ABC, CBS, WAPO, & FOX NEWS. Salinas is completing a book about "The business", the so-called, "Code of the road", and the price men sometimes pay for being stupid and selfish.