COMM 207, 337: 'Working the edges'

If you haven't heard me talk about "working the edges of the crowd" when you're covering an event in COMM 209 (basic newswriting), you will. It's a key part of coming up with something that's a little fresh, unusual, something that surprises.

(You'll hear about surprises, too. I like surprises. So do small children and readers.)

Anyway, here's an example. It's at the bottom of a color story by Chad Pergram, senior produceer for Fox News, on the vote on the Wall Street bailout bill bill that went down in flames Monday in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Not long after the vote, a toddler accompanied her parents on a tour of the U.S. Capitol. The three-year-old gleefully pushed her own stroller across the marble floors of Statuary Hall in the House wing of the building.

She had a ball. Even as chaos unfolded just steps away from her.

Then Steny Hoyer rounded a corner with a wall of reporters, camera crews and photographers in tow. The financial emergency bailout bill just melted down. And a galloping squadron of reporters barked at Hoyer to tell them what went wrong.

Oblivious, the girl ran her stroller around in circles. And the herd nearly stampeded her had an astute adult not scooped her up a nanosecond before the rolling throng bowled through the Capitol.

The toddler might not have been AIG or Bear Stearns. But after the $700 billion bill imploded, the tot become the only person to secure a Congressional bailout Monday.

I don't want to go overboard on any possible symbolic meaning, but it's a perfect "kicker" ... i.e. the little twist at the end of a good story that leaves you thinking.