National exposure? Don't mind if I do!

So I got a phone call from USA Today, the most widely read (or at least sold) paper in the country the other day. Their reporter in San Francisco wanted to do a piece on the Steve Fossett rescue effort, but he didn't want to drive all the way to Minden where it was centered. (Can't say I blame him.) So he asked me to do some things he couldn't do via the phone.
Ten exhaustive hours later, I sent him my carefully researched, keenly observed impression of the situation so far and his immediate response was, "OK, but Do you have anyone saying he's dead?"
"Not really," I said. "I mean, of course he is, but the head of the search effort's never going to announce something like that. The party line is that he's considered alive until they find a wreck."
"Hmmmm. That won't work at all," he said. "You're sure you can't get that? Something about rescuers losing hope? Anything?"
"Uh, not unless someone actually, like, says it," I said. "All the rescuers I talked to were actually really hopeful. More than I would be. Morale seems really good, overall."
"Hmmm. Fine, I'll see what I can do."
And that's how I got a byline in the 25th anniversary edition of America's newspaper without actually writing anything they wanted. Some folks say that the problem with journalists is that they get a storyline stuck in their heads and reject anything that doesn't match that framework as they're preparing their story. I'm not going to comment on that in case I ever want to work in journalism again, but you might think about it as you're reading the piece, which bears very little resemblance to my impressions as I was actually standing in the op center.
On the bright side, though: circulation of millions. Look for my name at the very bottom.