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Thursday, a friend asked me if I write the blog myself or pay a ghostwriter. I responded, "Isn't it obvious?" I would hope if I paid someone to write the daily blog for me that there would not be missing words, spelling errors and that each sentence would have a subject and a verb and there would be no stream of consciousness paragraphs! I am not that stupid that I would pay for mistakes! Yes, I write the blog myself everyday. I often write it on the run — on a handheld Blackberry (search) — but I do write it myself. I post e-mails and, from time to time, pics taken by others — but that is obvious. I assume the viewers realize that when I appear in a picture that I have not taken the photo myself (my arms are not that long.)
Do you wonder how big our staff is in D.C., where I am 99 percent of the time? We have three full time employees in D.C. — a producer/booker, my assistant and me. We have two offices side by side in the midst of a very active D.C. bureau. The offices are extremely modest — but we don't need fancy. We only need desks, phones and computers. The rest of the staff is in our New York bureau —- except we have one staffer in L.A. The fact that we have one staffer in our L.A bureau is an "accident." She used to be our line producer in New York, but in December moved with her husband to L.A. We were desperate for help and asked her if she would freelance in our L.A. bureau for a short time until we replaced her in New York. She agreed. It has worked out so well with her in L.A. that I suspect she is back to being a full time employee and not a freelancer. She used to work until 11 p.m. every night on the East Coast and now, with the time change, has managed to get a more "civilized" work schedule.
I think our show is the only FOX News Channel show with a staff in multiple cities. At first when I was hired, I suspect FOX was worried whether it would work to have me in a city different from the staff. I didn't want to move to New York and so we decided to try the multiple cities. Not only does it work very well, but it also enables us to do some things other shows can't do. For instance, if we have a big story in California, we have a staff member right there to jump on the story to book guests rather than to wait for someone to get on a plane on the East Coast and fly six hours to California. With computers and phones, it really does not matter if we are all housed in the same building or not. From time to time we do get the staff together for parties so it is not as though we never see each other. I also make lots of trips to New York.
As you will note below, when we don't talk about an ongoing investigation on the air — like the missing D.A. or Napa Valley double murder — it is because there is nothing new in the investigation. It does not mean that we are not daily checking — we are. We are just as curious as you are about what is happening in these cases. Every day during our 2:30 p.m. staff conference call, we talk about these cases and ask if there is anything new. Friday night, by the way, we have missing D.A. Ray Gricar's (search) girlfriend on the show. She spoke to him at 11:30 on April 15 — the last known conversation.
Now for your e-mails:
E-mail No. 1
Hi Greta,
I saw "The Smartest Guys in the Room" last week. I live in the River Oaks area of Houston ... the same neighborhood that Ken and Linda Lay still live comfortably in to this day. The movie is playing at River Oaks Theater and has a giant banner hanging on the marquee outside with Ken Lay's face on it. Priceless. I love that he and everyone he knows probably drive by it every day.
Did the movie make me angry? Of course. The whole audience was actually laughing at the audacity of the higher-ups and traders at Enron. It's the kind of arrogance demonstrated in the movie that makes me and so many of my friends and colleagues absolutely terrified of the president and his cronies. But, I realize FOX News is "fair and balanced" so it probably won't want this e-mail printed on your column. Oh well, at least the movie exists at all. There's still hope.
Keep up the good work,
Caroline Starry
E-mail No. 2
Dear Greta,
I think Lisa, from Corpus Christi TX., the anger management counselor, needs to attend anger management classes,
Best Regards,
Dieter Sellers
E-mail No. 3
Greta,
Watch your show every night. I am responding to your question about anger management. I believe that anger management classes would work for people who want to make a change. A savvy person, or prisoner, can attend any programming or anger management classes required and make it appear that the programming is helping in order to be released or (graduate). A prisoner will say and do anything required to get out of prison. Therefore, like anything else, anger management would probably benefit someone who is serious about changing their behavior.
Thanks,
Lois
Salt Lake City, UT
E-mail No. 4
Greta,
What is the latest on the missing D.A., whose car was found (was it Pennsylvania?) Suddenly that story has vanished from the news. He went to an antique mall and wasn't seen after that.
Nell Daniel
Federal Way, WA
ANSWER: I am told we will have the D.A.'s girlfriend Friday night on the show — assuming all goes as planned. We check every day on many stories that we cover — e.g. the Napa Valley murder of the two young women — hoping to get new information to you and because we want to know, too. We are as curious as you are.
E-mail No. 5
Subject: Laura note
Michael Jackson (search) said he had sex with Debbie Rowe (search) — that information came out in court today while jurors watched the outtakes of the living with Michael Jackson documentary. One of Jackson's people had a camera rolling when Martin Bashir was making his documentary ... this is the tape that has been shown to jurors in court. There had long been speculation that Jackson's two kids with Rowe were not his and it was a surrogate deal. He says that Prince and Paris were conceived in a natural way.
Yesterday, I wrote to you that there is tension brewing in the lawyer camp here and it seems to still be simmering. Last week, reporters viewed a good-sized scrap between the defense and prosecution outside the presence of the jury. Apparently, there is no love lost between defense attorney Robert Sanger and prosecutor Gordon Auchincloss, as well as the other attorneys on both sides. During a court break, someone on the prosecution team motioned for Sanger to come over to its side of the desk to discuss something quickly. When D.A. Tom Sneddon saw Sanger coming his way, Auchincloss apparently said something like, "Oh ... here he comes to say something stupid." Sanger reportedly flared up, pointed his finger at Auchincloss and said that was unprofessional. Sneddon told him to stay on "his side" of the courtroom and they'd stay on theirs. One print reporter here in Santa Maria said it looked like a diamondback had rattled its way across the lectern. The situation was such a flare up, or venom strike as the case may be, that a deputy had to get in the middle to tell everyone to cool it. The lawyers were rounded up and taken upstairs to hash it out after everyone realized that reporters and the public were still in the courtroom, watching the drama unfold. I talked to one of the court officials who was up close for all this and told me it was quite the snarly situation and it only got worse when they got upstairs.
Today, Mesereau gave a slam to the prosecution's style and said, "Oops, I'm starting to sound like Auchincloss." You also might remember the now famous "caught on video" fight Mesereau had with former family attorney Brian Oxman in the parking lot. Oxman was fired that day. Mesereau also seemed to get upset at Sanger yesterday about something in the courtroom. Jim Hammer says he saw Jackson trying to soothe Sanger by stroking him on his arm, like "It's OK. It's OK."
So, needless to say, we are watching the hair on the backs of these lawyer's necks to see who will snarl next!
Speaking of feisty lawyers, former Jackson attorney Mark Geragos is reportedly going to be called for the defense soon.
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