| Page 2 of 2 < |
The Hack as Journalist: Chasing Fares and Stories, With a Baby on Board
Mario Salas is a Mexican archetype: the worker with multiple jobs. A taxi driver in the Monterrey area, he is also a television cameraman and a newspaper reporter, sometimes all at once.
(By Manuel Roig-franzia -- The Washington Post)
TOOLBOX
   Resize
COMMENT
 Discussion Policy
 CLOSE
Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.
Who's Blogging  |
Then he hears it. At 5:25, 10 minutes into his mad dash, the faintest wail rises from the opposite lanes of traffic. It gets louder and louder, more unmistakable. Then, the source of the sound comes into view: a boxy ambulance with flashing lights.
Salas pounds the steering wheel.
"That bothers me so much," he says to no one in particular.
In the calculus of Salas's job, missing one ambulance is a bummer, but it isn't a deal breaker. The first ambulance often carries a corpse or someone so badly hurt as to be motionless. The best footage, he explains, is of victims writhing in pain, their bodies shredded by flying glass and torn metal.
"The injured are worth more than the dead," he says.
But 30 seconds later, another ambulance comes into view, then another. As Salas presses harder on the gas, he sees his story slipping away. In the back seat, Grecia Salas, whose daddy wants her to be a star reporter someday, hasn't cried once. She's done this before.
Somehow, as Salas weaves in and out of traffic, he manages to grab his cellphone and dial a source.
"Where is it?" he says. "I've already passed the federal checkpoint."
Calm, but intently focused, he drops the phone onto the dashboard.
"Almost there," he says.
At 5:30, Salas spots a pickup truck, its front end an accordion of red metal. Farther ahead, a van lies upside down. Salas pulls his car over, jumps out, wrestles a television camera from his trunk and wriggles into a TV Azteca vest. Without hesitating, he runs across the road, camera resting on his shoulder, and stops in front of a sobbing young girl, shivering with a blanket on her shoulders.
"I'm so glad you survived," Salas says.
A trailer rests at a cockeyed angle a few steps away, its load of fruit sprayed across the asphalt. The scene is ugly, but the air is divine: It smells of crushed limes.
By 5:45, Salas has filled his cartridge with footage. He grabs the phone and dials.
"Three cars, five hurt. It's a miracle anyone survived," Salas tells his boss, expertly spinning his yarn.
Behind him, a sedan pulls up and stops. It's the Telediario cameraman. Salas's face lights up, a smile that says: "I won."
No time to gloat, though. At, 5:50, Salas gallops toward his car. He has video to file, a newspaper story to write and a baby to tuck into a crib.
