I’m on special assignment to the self proclaimed political unit of my station. It’s a “self-proclaimed” unit because it’s actually just me and Political Reporter Dave Bryan in the unit.

Somewhere along the way, Dave and I figured out that we worked well together and I had been lobbying for a permanent assignment working with Dave since our trips to the political conventions a while back.

Incidentally, last night found us in Lawndale following developments in the Centinela Valley Union High School District’s School Superintendent over-compensation controversy.

Somehow the Suerintendent (yellow tie in the pic above) managed to grease his own wheels and come up with a compensation package that’s at least three times what would be considered normal compensation for his position in similar school districts.

Yeah, somebody is smelling like a rat.

Anyway, the work that I do covering politics is almost always more difficult than the general assignment work that I’ve always done (and gotten pretty good at). We’re on the air an hour earlier and the stories average a run time of two and a half minutes (average run time is a minute and thirty seconds).

Dave has needed a photographer who could meet the deadlines and work out technical issues quickly.

Apparently, that’s me.

There is a lot less fanfare and we’re often flying under the radar, but the people who pay attention to what we’re doing are all saying we’re doing a great job.

Yay.

I don’t care about the glory in making the last minute Hail Mary saves right now. I look around and I see that there’s a lot wrong with the world. While I’m not so arrogant to think that I can fix anything in the big picture, I can make sure that Dave is on TV when he needs to be.

We’re a good team and I’m a lot happier working harder on stories that might be important, as opposed to working on fluff that leads the news because more people will watch fluff.

I don’t know how long this assignment is going to last, but I’m going to enjoy it for as long as I can. All I’m asking is for people to pay attention.

Sure, it’s politics, but you never know, sometimes (as I’m finding out) if you pay attention, you might catch something important.