Get to the Chase

Chases. I love them. I know they generally have little to no news value but they're interesting to watch. It is what it is. When you're flipping through the channels and come across a chase, it's a hard thing to turn away from, even if it goes on for a half-hour with little happening. Something COULD happen and that's what keeps you watching. I'm not sure how chases do in ratings (I'll do a little research to try to find out).

When you have a chase, here are some ideas:

*Don't go back full to your anchors. If you want to show them, pop them in a double box and keep the big box as the chase. No one wants to see anchors talking about a chase unless they're also actually seeing the chase.

*Try to get an intelligent guest. Obviously, the police involved in the chase might not be able to do a phoner with you. Are there other departments in your area that are media friendly? They might be able to walk you through the decisions that officers make when they start chases, also what methods they use during a chase, and how they end. An officer from a local police academy might be a good phoner-- they teach the officers how to chase and use stop sticks. They might also know the rules and regs for giving chase. It might make some sense to call these people ahead of time to give them a heads up that you might want to use them when a chase occurs.

*Have a prop. An anchor I used to work with used to have a stop-stick on his desk. I'm not sure how he got it, but it was a great prop whenever we had a chase. It was something he could have in his hands to show what was actually happening on the ground.

*Get a map. Depending on your resources, it might be good to have a big city map with all the main highways on it. That way when someone says he's southbound on US 544, you can get a general sense of where that is. You can have the same map, just update it the location (ok, now he's east of US 544 in Old Lake Hollow). Again, I'd probably throw that map in some kind of double box so that the chase can be up at all times.

*If you have to cut out of the chase before it ends, make sure you let viewers know you'll be able to see how it ended in a later newscast. Or drive to the web if you have that capablity-- lots of stations are streaming their chopper feed on their websites.