 Introducing "Producer's Notebook," an exclusive, behind-the-scenes look at the stories that are making headlines from the unique perspective of a Factor producer. Check back in the coming weeks for more inside reports on Factor stories.
Every day, seven segment producers hustle to put out the #1 cable news show in the country, "The O'Reilly Factor." Each segment producer generally is responsible for one segment per day. O'Reilly holds a conference call every morning with his senior producers and decides what stories will make the program. The segment producers are given their assignment each morning at 11 and have about 6 hours to get the story, and get it right, before the television show is taped that evening. You can probably guess it's demanding work with tough deadlines, but at the end of the day you can watch what you've done and take pride in the results.
Here's how it goes down
Every Monday and Thursday at 2:30pm, the entire Factor staff meets with Bill and pitches him stories we think could make the program. Those "pitch meeting" stories selected, plus breaking news stories, comprise the content of the program. All 15 of us--TV producers, radio producers, website producers and executive producers--circle up around O'Reilly in our newsroom pod and take turns trying to "sell" him possible segments. Bill is completely honest and very busy, so it's crucial to pitch quality stories clearly and concisely. If you don't, the story gets dumped without ceremony.
Jessica Lunsford's father happened to call me last Monday morning before our pitch meeting. Mark Lunsford and I had first met in Florida a month after his daughter was found dead after being abused and buried alive. A man with a record of sexual abuse named John Couey was arrested and charged. I remember watching back on that afternoon as Lunsford pulled up on his Harley for our meeting, and I could immediately see the loss reflected on his face. While we were together that day, people would approach him and shake his hand, hug him and cry. He was a small-town guy whose tragedy had made him perhaps one of the best-known men there.
That night, we were supposed to scour trailer parks together for more information about Couey and possible accomplices, but Lunsford said he didn't "trust himself to stay out of trouble" and said I'd have to go alone. Plus, he'd just ducked away from his job hauling dumpsters, and he explained that his boss had threatened to fire him if he missed any more time. So Mark roared off on his motorcycle.
After that, he quit his job and now rides his Harley state to state lobbying legislators to crack down on sex offenders, arguing for passage of what has become known as "Jessica's Law." That Monday morning, before our pitch meeting, Mark called me from Kansas to say Jessica's Law was moving forward--but said there was a problem in Utah. He had been to nine states in the last few months and so far he thought Utah cared the least about his cause.
"Only one person showed up to the rally," he told me. "I felt like they didn't even want me there."
The preliminaries
Later at the pitch meeting, I mentioned Mark's call and Bill questioned why only one person came to the Jessica's Law rally. He was curious if Utah's large polygamist population or the state's high rate of under-age marriage had anything to do with it. Pointing to the board that shows every segment on upcoming Factor shows, Bill said, "D block--Wednesday." Just 2 days away! "We'll put Lunsford in there"--Bill gestured--"and get me someone in Utah who follows polygamy in that state. And let's call Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and see what's going on."
I scanned my Rolodex after the meeting to check my contacts in Utah. I'd previously produced a segment on Melissa Rowland, the Utah mother who delivered a stillborn baby because she refused to have a C-section, and I'd kept the number for Cliff Donovan, a Utah radio talk show host I'd spoken with. So I called Donovan on his cell phone, hoping he could help us out. Not only did he agree that there was something to this issue, but he also happened to host his show an hour outside the largest polygamist enclave in the US located in Hillsdale, Utah. He was the perfect guest. I put him and Lunsford on hold for Wednesday and told the senior producer we were booked.
Now the real work began. The segment still had to be researched, written and produced.
Show day
Wednesday morning at 11 am, O'Reilly said he needed Utah child sex crime statutes, sex offender statistics, underage marriage and polygamy statistics and several egregious examples of state judges letting child rapists off easy. The work needed to be completed in three hours and typed up cogently into a research packet.
Lunsford needed to be picked up in Homosassa, FL and driven to the WEDU studio in Tampa by 6pm. Donovan needed to be picked up in St. George, Utah and taken downtown to his studio at WCSD by 4pm Mountain time. I called our national car service and booked both cars.
Every guest must arrive at least 30 minutes before his or her interview. If a guest is late, it destroys the natural flow and seamlessness of the show because we then have to tape segments out of order. Because of that, Bill does not tolerate lateness, and we as producers are responsible for making sure our guests are there and ready to go when they are supposed to be--we call this deadline a "hit" time.
All of our reporting must be vigorously fact-checked, so I called the Utah Attorney General's office to confirm the criminal statutes. I spoke with Republican State Legislator Paul Ray to ask if Jessica's Law had been proposed. It had not. "Utah doesn't have a problem with sex offenders," said Ray. "We keep our sex offenders locked up."
I also had to confirm whether Utah's Governor Jon Huntsman (R) had been invited to the Lunsford rally. Citizen's Voice, the group that set up the event, said the Governor was invited twice, but never showed up.
Next, I called Senator Orrin Hatch's DC office to get its comment on this issue. His press secretary, Peter Carr, said it was "ludicrous" to suggest that the existence of some polygamist communities in Utah could have any influence on child sex crime legislation. Hours later, he fired off an email to my executive producers outlining the Senator's position on sex offenders, and I brought it to Bill's office for him to read.
After the research was written up and the packet was complete, I began to edit the tape inserts for the segment. (Producers are responsible for supervising the editing of any video that appears during their segment.) I checked out existing Factor tapes from our show library, screened them, and took them to a room where an editor and I cut the footage together. It took about 30 minutes to cut together video of Jessica Lunsford, polygamists, prisons, and Gov. Huntsman.
The segment
Lunsford led off, saying how "bad" he felt that "no one showed up." He said that "it was the only time it had ever happened" and "couldn't believe Utah was like that." Donovan followed, saying "there is a sense among some quarters that, because of polygamy, which has been outlawed by Utah's constitution since the latter part of the 19th Century, and which the Mormon Church has disavowed, at least on this mortal coil, that there may
be a polygamy influence involved in this."
O'Reilly added that polygamy may or may not be involved, but that one issue of concern is that "many, many girls get married very, very young in Utah." Bill expressed his concern that the Governor was seemingly not doing enough about his state's laws, which Bill considered "very lenient" and concluded Jessica's Law had "zero chance" of passing in Utah.
The segment wrapped up and, all in all, I was happy with the way things went. I called my guests to thank them, and Mark Lunsford told me he'd be going on to Michigan in March to press the case for Jessica's Law in that state.
The Factor will continue its reporting.
Jesse Watters has been a producer for The OReilly Factor since 2003. Before joining Fox News, Watters worked on political campaigns and in finance. He received a B.A. in History from Trinity College (Hartford, CT) in 2001. Watters was born and raised in Philadelphia and moved to New York in 1995.
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