WFLA Steve Andrews

Of all the field trips I’ve taken in my public affairs reporting class (and possibly all prior field trips in my life) the Steve Andrews made my little broadcast heart swell.


He began by explaining that most of his stories begin with a simple phone call. One such story began with a call about Florida State Attorney Harry Lee Coe and dog bets. When Andrews began his investigation into this claim, he was startled to hear that Coe ordered the records, which are to be available by law, destroyed. This is when any reporter would question themselves. Do I sue? Do I call the police? Does this make me part of the story? In the end Steve summed it up best, “A good citizen of the community would report the crime,” so they did. Governor Bush gave law enforcement the go ahead to investigate Coe and after a interview with Steve, Coe ended his own life. Steve and his partner found his body while investigating the story further. An interesting fact is that they filmed the scene as a security factor to back up what they found and when the police asked for the tape, Steve said no. The reason being that once the investigation is over, the film would become a public record and anyone could see it.

Steve is not an advocate of “dogging” journalism; his questions are quick, to the point and never disrespectful.

A second call got the ball rolling on a story about a reservoir in Hillsborough County that was cracking after just 3 years. Steve literally hopped into a helicopter and flew over the scene to inspect it himself, and when he returned to land he immediately began to search through construction records and found an underwater inspection video that really made the report gold.

What this means to me is that it’s not always the stories that I actively seek out that are the best ones. If I have to sit through hundreds of messages to find that one story, it’s worth it. Following up is also an important point; you can’t just report something then never speak of it again! You have to keep your audience informed.