I don’t make the news, I just break it

Ever wonder where the peripheral characters on 24/7 tabloid TV-news come from?

Actually, me neither.

Sure I can get as sucked into the toddler-stuck-in-a-well, missing-co-ed-in-Aruba,take-him-off-life-supports stories as easily as the next guy.  It’s just that I usually don’t. After about the third round of the same-old, not particularly interesting people repeating the same-old, not particularly interesting things. (Yes, I was driving by in my vehicle when I saw something reflecting off the ground, and realized it was little Bobby’s scout knife.  Or “I dated Scott in junior high, and I could tell even then that he was going to turn out to be a multiple-wife killer.”) Oh, see you in People Magazine.

Anyway, in case you were wondering how all those non-descript, salt of some earth, hard-working, god-fearing, keep-their-nose-cleaning Americans find their way to the microphone of Greta Van Susteren or Geraldo Rivera, the answer may well be: they found their way there through Larry Garrison, newsbreaker.

Garrison was profiled in an article by Sheelah Kolhatkar in The Atlantic (September 2010),

Although Garrison’s company/website is called The News Breaker, he’s actually more of a fixer, a middle man between the tabloid news outlets and the I deserve my 15 minutes of fame brigade.

At the outset of The Atlantic article, we’re shown Garrison in action:

“I don’t think you should go with CNN…I’d like to team up with you.” He’s talking to John Muldowney, a 78-year-old retired propane inspector from Manheim, Pennsylvania, who thinks that he and his wife might have found Natalee Holloway’s remains while snorkeling off the coast of Aruba. The story involves blood and tragedy, but also the opportunity to go on television, and Garrison, who has one of the most unusual—and controversial—jobs in the TV business, exists to make that happen. “I want to make sure you don’t have your day of glory and then everyone forgets about you,” Garrison continues, his eyes gleaming. “I’ll be there for you.”

Garrison didn’t get the chance to be there for the Muldowneys, apparently.  They didn’t take his advice about CNN, where Nancy Grace hangs out her shingle, so they did have their day of glory with old Nan. That day of glory happened last March, when they appeared on Grace’s show – which I believe to be the TV epicenter of all things Natalee Holloway – to report their findings.

What happened beyond this, I have no idea, but I do believe that even I would have heard if Natalee’s body had been found.  Surely, it would have come out when Joran van der Sloot, who may or may not have murdered or accidentally killed Holloway, was arrested for killing another young woman in Peru.

Garrison makes his living by bringing “tabloid stories to TV news programs.”

Rather than these “news” programs, and their producers, having to work the phones finding “the talent”, let alone having to pay folks to come on the news – God forbid – a lot of them pay Garrison.

And what do folks like the Muldowneys get from this?

Mostly bupkis, although Garrison puts in a sweetener, offering to broker book and movie deals if the story is big and juicy enough. And I guess he guides and coaches them well enough that they don’t come off as complete fools.

But if money changes hands, it goes to Garrison, who makes it his business to “get[s] there first, [and] lock[s] up the rights to the person’s story.” He’s paid as a consultant, so the networks can keep pretending that they don’t pay their sources.

If Nancy Grace is the TV epicenter for all things Natalee Holloway, then Garrison is the print epicenter.

Garrison teamed up with Natalee’s father, Dave Holloway, negotiating his TV appearances, speaking on his behalf, and co-authoring a best-selling book called Aruba: The Tragic Untold Story of Natalee Holloway and Corruption in Paradise.

Best. Selling. Book.

And I’m deciding whether to buy the new Jonathan Franzen or get it from the library. Decision made: I’m buying. I’d like an occasional best seller to have some literary merit, thank you.

Garrison’s also worked with:

…jurors in the Michael Jackson child-molestation case; a friend of Robert Blake’s dead wife; John Mark Karr, who falsely confessed to killing JonBenet Ramsey.

Talk about a litany of the tabloid stars. But these are all kind of yesterday, aren’t they? If only I were aware of some of the more current tabloid TV darlings – beyond the obvious ones like Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton (thanks to the coke bust).

It’s not, by the way, as if Garrison has no standards.  Here he is weighing in on whether there’s a movie to be had about Nadya Suleman – the Octomom (how soon we forget):

Producer and New York Times best selling author Larry Garrison is already yelling, "Cut!" He tells "Extra," "There were no redeeming qualities to this story," but he doesn't object to Suleman cashing in another way, adding, "They may make money off a book and pictures."

Oh, I get it. There are redeeming qualities to stories from Jackson jurors, friends of Robert (Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time) Blake’s dead wife; and the pathetic bastard who fantasized that he’d killed JonBenet.  But not to the Octomom’s’ cheaper by the dozen saga.

I guess redeeming qualities are in the wallet of the beholder. Me, I don't see no redeeming qualities nowhere no how in any of this.

By the way, while Garrison may have a nose for the “news”, his instincts aren’t always unerring. With respect to the skeleton that the Muldowneys may or may not have found:

“In my gut intuition, I feel this may be it,” he tells me as we hop into the Mercedes and start speeding toward his house. “God works in funny ways.”

Not so far: the skeleton story has, to date, gone nowhere.  Which is not to say it won’t be resurrected some day. (And not that, for the sake of this girl’s poor family, I don’t hope that Natalee Holloway’s body is found.)

Garrison’s job isn’t easy. He does get some tips from informants, but he also does a lot of what these days substitutes for the shoe-leather search of yore. He surfs the ‘net for:

…some keywords that signify a captivating subject: arson, fraud, murder, millionaires, slavery.

And there’s a lot of competition. Folks these days, while perhaps not more media savvy, are more media aware, and can get their mush, photos, and story “out there” on their own. But Garrison does end up being disintermediated. Remember, we’re now seeing people – like the Balloon Boy family – manufacturing events so that they can cash in on it with a book or, better yet, a reality show.

Personally, I hope that nothing exciting enough ever happens to me or anyone I care about that would put us for a nanosecond in the tabloid TV limelight.

Nope. I’d rather live my life out in desperately quiet anonymity, thank you.

And I’ll take my plain old, boring tech marketing work over having to deal with those on the fringes of the sordid, salacious stories that so much of our culture revolves around these days.