TV or Not TV

A turf war between the print and broadcast media has existed ever since Alexander Graham Bell, or whoever it was, invented television. I myself have had less than love for TV cameramen and broadcasters ever since I first encountered them when I wrote for an apparel trade publication called Women's Wear Daily.

One day the secretary of commerce came to town and a press conference was set up at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles. As we ink-stained wretches asked our usual brilliant questions ("Duh, how do you think the economy will do this year, Mr. Secretary?"), in swept Mr. Clete Roberts with his camera crew. Roberts was the big mucky-muck of broadcast news in L.A. in the early days of TV. He was your movie star version of a foreign correspondent: trench coat, dashing mustache, dashing name. The name was probably made up. I think his real handle was Myron Schwartz.

Anyway, he parted us print reporters like Moses parting the Red Sea, took over, did his interview, and then magnanimously waved an OK for the reporters to take up where we left off, as if he were bestowing a gift on us. Yuk!

Well, I didn't have any encounters with cameramen after I left the newspaper business until I started doing tournament write-ups. There weren't many TV guys at the Watermelon Harvest Festival tournament at Big Denny's Barstow Card Casino, but at the World Series I began encountering an occasional cameraman sent by to get a little footage for some local Las Vegas station. OK, no big deal. Then, as the World Series began getting better known, more and more technicians and equipment began showing up. When ESPN began filming, that's when it got serious. All of a sudden, as the main event drew near, there were cameras and cameramen and microphones and soundmen and technicians and producers and booms and overhead lights and various pieces of equipment and wires all over the place.

And, all of a sudden, writers didn't have the freedom to move around. Before, I could stand pretty much wherever I wanted, interact with the players, and even sit at the tournament table once a couple of seats opened up. Now, not only was I being crowded out, but wherever I stood, I seemed to be in some camera's line of view. In the past, if a railbird ever asked me to move because I was blocking his view, I could tell him to take a hike. With TV cameramen, you just moved. A casino, after all, cares more about millions of potential viewers than a hundred or so write-up sheets. After a while, the final table at the main event was ringed by ESPN television cameras, and print writers couldn't even get near, but had to make do in the audience, depending on whatever information a tournament director or other narrator with a mike cared to deliver. At this year's WSOP, reporters and cameramen began getting in each other's way so much that the writers were shunted to the sidelines by the third day of the main event, as I recall. Now I knew how railbirds felt.

Then came the World Poker Tour. Now, the WPT deserves all the credit in the world for introducing tournament poker to mainstream audiences, bringing in a flood of new players, and, most important of all, helping Mike Sexton to finally find a steady job. The benefits for Max Shapiro are less obvious.

All of a sudden, the final table became an audience entertainment event, sort of like Hollywood Squares. Now I found myself really nailed to my seat for excruciatingly long periods. Besides the time spent on playing poker, there were breaks for changing the film, technical work, and freshening the makeup on the players (I can't wait to see what they could do with Eskimo, if he ever makes a final table). During these breaks the audience is entertained with tough trivia questions such as, "How many cards are dealt in seven-card stud?"

Then, there's the time spent revving up the audience. "Let's see how much noise you can make," Linda Johnson urges, and ditsy young women on either side of me, who wouldn't know their ace from a hole in the ground, start screaming in both ears, "AAAH! AAAH! AAAH!"

I admit that thoughts of sabotage have occasionally crossed my mind. I once considered cutting the television wires, but realized that I'd probably electrocute myself in the process. A little spray paint on the camera lens? Displaying obscene signs when cameras scan the audience? Nah, just pipe dreams.

Let's face it. In this increasingly complex and sophisticated electronics age, I should be grateful that there is even a place left for those of us who are so archaic and obsolescent that we still rely on pen and paper to take notes. With voice recognition and artificial intelligence and who knows what else, I figure it's only a matter of time until they develop bots to do our job. Seconds after the final hand is dealt, the story and the headline and the results will be complete, copies will be flying out of a machine and the report will have been e-mailed to gaming publications and Internet sites around the world. Not only will the reports be error-free, they will be analytical and give hand and pot odds correct to the nth degree, and the bot will probably throw in some lines funnier than anything I could ever come up with.

Ah, well, maybe I could then get a job editing and proofreading Oklahoma Johnny Hale's columns. That would be a full-time job. And I could at least do it without anybody screaming "AAAH! AAAH! AAAH!" in my ear.