The entire half hour was dedicated to a pair of guests who had phoned the station in desperation the day before. They didn’t know where else to turn. They called Orlando News 12 because of the station’s consumer hotline motto: “When you don’t know where else to turn!” The station hung up on most of the callers.
A tearful father was led onto the set and took a seat in front of the cameras. Next to him sat his son. The small boy had no hair. As they often say,
The father had spent so much time taking care of his son that he’d lost his job. Which meant the family lost their insurance for the boy’s care. So he paid out of pocket, letting all other bills slide until they were evicted from their home. The father had thought that since their house was all paid up, state homestead laws protected it from being seized for other debts, and he was right. Except for one exception. Property taxes.
Their asses were on the street, where they now lived in a series of roach motels when they weren’t living in their car. Oh, and the mother was killed last year by a drunk driver.
It couldn’t possibly get any worse, right? Just watch Channel 12: The father sold his car to afford a “desperate” program of treatment for his son. The program was designed to help people precisely in his situation. If the family qualified, the father would pay what he could—a tiny fraction of the cost—and a network of foundations would pick up the rest of the tab. He found the program on the Internet.
The son never got treatment. The program was all a scam, devised to prey on the parents of terminally ill children.
The TV station had never seen such an extreme combination of sympathetic victims, hateful villains and great video. It was the perfect storm of tragedy for
By the end of the show, the station’s switchboard lit up until it crashed. The community was coming through. They wanted to do whatever they could for the family—and kill the people behind the scam.
A bank account was set up in their name. Donations flooded in.
So did ratings. The show’s producers had the family back the second day, when the interviewer got their names wrong. “Paul, I mean Phil. Sorry . . . So, Paul, how has the generosity of our station changed your life, because we’re here
The father dabbed his eyes. “I can’t thank you enough . . .”
A week passed. The station’s editors held a meeting to determine upcoming programming. One item was a no-brainer: Get that father and son back again. Their previous two segments had garnered the largest viewerships in months. And get some more footage from that depressing motel to juice the ratings. A TV van was sent out. It had a giant eyeball on the side.
The crew arrived at the dump. A hooker propositioned the cameraman as he strapped on the battery packs, but he said he was working. The reporter slipped into a bright blue jacket and grabbed a microphone.
“How do I look?”
The cameraman gave a thumbs-up.
They went to the door and knocked.
And knocked. And knocked.
It finally opened. The father looked like he’d been dead asleep. Except not. The cameraman caught a startling glimpse and forced the door open. The video was beyond the wildest dreams of the
What the hell?
The initial shock wore off quickly as reality quickly revealed itself: The boy was actually a petite twenty-six-year-old woman who had shaved her head. It was all a sickening, elaborate scam. The community had been ripped off for thousands of dollars. One of the saddest plights on earth exploited by sociopathic crooks and non-verifying journalists.
The TV reporter was giddy with elation. He had an excellent scandal to report, and he hammered away with hardball questions as the couple scrambled to gather up cocaine and cash.
The TV people ran outside as the grifters jumped into a red Camaro.
Six hours later, on the station’s main anchor set:
