Features

TV reporter Chris O'Neill-Yates caught her breath in time to follow this dispatch:

Remind me not to powder my nose on the bus again! Terry Roberts from The Telegram captured a frank moment aboard the big blue bus.

Makeup is one of the realities of television that makes me long at times for my radio days. Applying powder on the bus is one thing, but just try getting eyeliner on in a Twin Otter bouncing over the Torngat Mountains on the way into Hopedale without poking your eye out?!

But this is TV after all. I've learned to suck it up and move beyond the makeup to get the job done and tell stories. And my week with the Tory campaign was as challenging, physically and mentally, as it gets, for both myself and my bold, talented cameraman, Bruce Tilley (seen below, shooting said Tory bus).

We slogged gear from bus to hotel to plane to bus to hotel to helicopter to bus to plane ... you get the picture. It's fast-paced and gruelling work, but it was also a lot of fun being at the centre of the action and observing the political drama unfold. I didn't realize just how frenetic the pace of the Tory campaign really was was until last Thursday, when I couldn't remember what town I was in while shooting an on-camera.

As it happened, I was in Clarenville and covering one of the innumerable whistle stops, press conference and stump speeches choreographed by the Danny Williams campaign. It was an interesting seat from which to watch this campaign unfold in Week One. The Williams campaign is - and it may come as no surprise - a well-oiled machine with plenty of money to spend.

And Williams doesn't behave like a guy with a huge lead. He is as driven and as hungry on the campaign trail as if he were behind by 60 points in the polls, and not ahead by 60.

The the kickoff of the Williams campaign in Corner Brook on Monday, where the Pepsi Centre was blocked to the rafters with Williams supporters and about half of the PC candidates.

Over five days we travelled to Goose Bay, Labrador City, Gander, Twillingate, Noggin Cove, Gander, Clarenville, Goobies, Come By Chance, Whitbourne, St. John's, Goose Bay, Hopedale, Nain, Goose Bay, St. Anthony, and back to St. John's on Friday night.

I missed out on Fogo and Change Islands because there wasn't enough room on the chopper but my cameraman went along and shot what was some of the most interesting and confrontational tape of the week. People in both places had a long list of greivances to place at Williams's feet: the ferry service, outmigration, the hospital, and on it went.

'The hem of Williams's garment'

But Williams listened. His people took notes and promised to get back to people. But other than there and Goose Bay (disgruntlement over the Energy Plan is rife in Labrador) it was mostly about touching the hem of Williams's garment. There is no denying that the guy is popular. At times it was like being on tour with Mick Jagger! I'm not kidding.

Part of it is a bandwagon effect, undoubtedly, but people came up to him and said nice things everywhere we went. And it wasn't just at the orchestrated events such as campaign headquarters stops. The message from people was almost unanimously supportive of the job he's doing as premier. I saw that kind of hero worship when I covered the Tobin campaign on the West Coast in 1996. But it was nothing like this.

I've covered others elections and plenty of politics in the almost 15 years I've been a reporter for the CBC. I reported on the Tobin campaign in 1996 and anchored election-night coverage for CBC Radio. This is the first election that I've been "on the bus" during the campaign, aside from hopping on here and there at times. And I know many people question the value of this kind of an arrangement and the ethical implications.

Those of us on the bus are quite conscious of not developing Stockholm Syndrome. To avoid being completely embedded and having nothing but the view from the campaign, Bruce and I jumped off at different points and went out talking to ordinary people. This week after the debate I'm back on the bus. The Liberal bus this time. I'm looking forward to that, too.

On a technological note, thanks to the technical geniuses who invented the tools to help us get our jobs done more efficiently from practically anywhere. I was able to use my Blackberry to go online on my computer and file scripts to be vetted by my producer in St. John's. It sure beats trying to read my own writing down the phone line for a vet. And for radio reporters, being able to use a computer to send audio is a long way from the 'alligator clips' we used to hook on the wires inside the mouthpiece of the phone receiver to send audio.

There are times that the technology fails us. And this week was no exception. Like in Hopedale when I'm up on a hill overlooking the town getting ready to tape my on-camera and the microphone dies. We asked the helpful RCMP officers who were escorting us around town to go back to the plane and bring back Bruce's kit bag so we could get another piece of gear. They did and it all worked out. But meanwhile, the premier is held up in the Twin Otter on the runway waiting to take off so he can make it into Nain on schedule.

Even without technical failures, filing for TV deadlines is sometimes ulcer-inducing. Time had to be built into the PC campaign schedule for us to edit and get our tape to a feed point. We used either a CBC location or our satellite truck, which put a lot of miles on it last week. The technology hasn't evolved yet to the point that we're sending digital video files back to St. John's.

Maybe we'll be there in time for the next election. A couple of times, we edited in hotel rooms rented for an hour or so. You'd really get a kick out of how we overcome challenges in TV is made if you'd seen me record my script this week. Microphone in hand, head underneath a bedspread (to block out any ambient sound) reading script from my Blackberry! Ahhhh, the glamour of it all!