The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

two swindlers y Cou Mos front of Milton County Co rt, where who defrauded the public of per. dough. arded four Ye romptly appeal The day I switched with crime reporter Dailey by Cathy Robb + I've got this theory, see. become successful nuclear physicists and get paid alot. Tt se who can't add, but can spell a few hard words, become journalists and develop poor relationships with bank managers. I can't add to save my life. There are, by the way, three kinds of jour- nalists. Those with good voices and bad skin (with lots of zits and stuff) become radio reporters. Those with bad voices and bad skin get newspaper jobs 'cause nobody cares what you look or sound like when you work for a newspaper. And those lucky sots with good skin and good voices get hired by television stations. They also get paid more than newspapers or radio reporters. It's all very disgusting. Especially when you're like me, with true confes- sions skin and a voice that would knock Joan Rivers on her ear. Those who can add y about what TV station 'd like to spend a day with, one with guts and enthusiasm and loads of excitement. Which im- mediately threw CBC out the window. I thought, "well, maybe CTV but then I realized that you have to be a fair-haired Redford clone to work there. Global was out of the question cause nobody around here wat- ches it. And who in their right mind would want to work for CHCH in Hamilton. I finally decided on NBC but my boss wouldn't send me to New York. So that left CITY-TV, home of CITY-PULSE news, Dini Petty's baby, the theme from Rocky and more fires than all of the Buffalo stations put together. I've always figured that CITY is what the Toronto Sun would look like on video. Ya know what I mean? Once I decided on my victim, er, station, I had to figure out which reporter to switch with. The name Gord Mar- tineau flickered briefly in You'd have to be a Redford clone to work for CTV. So I thought when the Star started this Swit- cheroo series, that it would be really neat (we're talking mega- neat here) to swap places with a television reporter and see for myself what it's like to be a celebrity journalist with a great voice and great skin and money falling all over the joint. REDFORD CLONES I thought real careful- my brain but I realized if I worked with him for a day I'd completely humiliate myself asking for his autograph and other stuff. I mean, he's so GORGEOUS. And for sure I didn't want to end up on the ci- ty hall beat. I get enough politics around the Scugog Municipal Office and the letters to the editor page to lat me a lifetime. No, what I wanted was something exciting. I wanted to get out there and cover fires, murders, rapes and bank robbers. I wanted Crime Specialist, Mark Dailey. "Dailey," he says over the phone in a voice designed to strip furniture. "Robb", sez 1. (Doesn't it just drive you nuts when people answer the phone and bark their last names in your ear?) flash and suddenly I'm hearing Mark Dailey's whole life story, right from when he started in the radio biz at 14 years old to when he got up at six this morning. "I guess I should get out my notebook," I remember babbling, as he rambled on about the 20 or 30 phone checks he makes at home in the morning before he even leaves for work. Dailey"s on call I end up face to face with CITY's crime reporter Dailey. I explain the Swit- cheroo idea to CITY- TV's crime reporter, thinking he'll turn me down. Always the fatalist. "Sure," he barks. "Sounds like a great idea. When do you want to come down?" We decide on Wednes- day, July 11 and I agree to be at the Queen Street CITY office building at 8 a.m. I can't find a park- ing spot anywhere in the vicinity (it was hard enough just to find the vicinity) so I'm 15 minutes late. But what else is new. After a brief but in- tense physicgl.argument between my massive camera bags and CITY's slender elevator, I end up face to face with Mr. Dailey himself, appear- ing taller than he looks on TV. Like, this guy is a mammoth six foot six in- ches. Skinny, but tall. Real tall. NEWS AT SIX There's an awkward few minutes between us - neither one of us quite sure what to say to the other - but it passes in a 2-hours but his work day doesn't usually start un- til eight, when he has a discussion with the CITY-PULSE producer and figures out what stories he's going to work on that day. The whole news team hinges its work around the six o'clock news broadcast. There's another broadcast at 10 but as Dailey points out, it's usually just a shortended version of the first one - with a few more features to round things out. ars in the time for sup- Great Port Perry Star summertime switcheroo. . ... @ \ Kids have it made, they really do. The stinkers. They're not like adults, h ung up on insecurities, the Me Gen- eration and Freud. They KNOW who they are and what they want to be. Prime ministers, mad scient champion break-dancers and undergrou there's no limit to their imagination or a But somewhere along the line the denly all their dreams go out the window. They flunk math in high school, their voices change, they don't have enough money for college or they get pregnant. And they end up like the rest of us. Wishing they were in someone else's shoes. Granted, there's prob- ably a few lucky ones out there who actually like their work but they were all born filthy rich anyway and are only working for the heck of it. They don't count. Most of us poor slobs are slogging it out to put clothes on our backs and food on the table. Right? Wishing we were work- ing somewhere else, right? Regretting the Cathy Robb, Star reporter with Mark Dailey's jacket, Mark Dailey's tie and Mark Dailey's glasses, displayed in front of Osgoode Hall. Note the CITY-TV microphone. Who is she trying to kid? CRIME SELLS A murder and a fraud. Geez, this much news doesn't happen in a whole year in Port Perry. Never mind in one day. Where folks might flip the channel when the business report comes on, they'll stay glued to A murder and a fraud story all in one day. Dailey usually has one nr two stories on the go but often finds himself stuck with four or five. At 8:30 this morning he already knows what he has to have done by the time 6:00 rolls around. The murder of a teenag- ed cyclist the night before will be at the top of the night's news. A $7 million plus fraud case will also merit Dailey's close attention. their sets when Dailey appears on the screen with all the gory details of Metro's latest murder. "People love crime,' he shrugs. "Crime sells." And if anyone knows, he should. The 30 year old crime reporter nabb- casting came to an abrupt standstill for two years however, when his yen for crime reporting led him to a job as a cop. Police work sort of ran in his family and he spent a fair bit of time in the Youth vs. Crime pro- gram in school. He also did a little part-time police work and when the local police chief, a friend of the family, ask- ed young Dailey if he wanted to be a cop, Mark's broadcasting career was temporarily put on hold. ART FORM He resumed it when he discovered police work was "'too much politics." Besides, he liked to write. "TV's a bit of an art form, condensing and writing to make the whole story sing,' he ex- plains, his long lanky form folded into a paper- littered desk on CITY's fifth floor. "I can take a ists, rock stars, world nd guerilla terrorists -- mbition. y become adults and sud- day we kicked the professor where it hurt and got booted clean out of law school. Well, this one's for you, baby. A summer series that'll put Thrill Of A Lifetime to shame. A column to fulfill your wildest career desires (to a point--we can't do anything illegal). The Great Star Summer Switcheroo will feature two working stiffs -- just like you- who will try a different job each week all summer long. And then at the end of the summer, we'll be draw- ing a name out of a hat and sending one lucky person to the job of his or her choice for a day. IF it can be arranged. We can't guarantee any- thing. We're not God (sorry to break it to you). So read The Great Star Summer Switch- eroo each week. See how John B. McClelland and Cathy Robb make fools of themselves as they attempt unusual jobs. Giggle, but not too loud. And send your name, phone number and job of your dreams to The Port Perry Star, 235 Queen Street, P.O. Box 90, Port Perry, LOB INO. That's in Ontario, by the way. You could win a chance to be who or what you've always wanted to be. Who says kids get all the breaks? pretty boring story and try to make it sing a little bit." At CITY, reporters strive to keep up the sta- tion's people-oriented flavour. Every story is about someBODY in- stead of someTHING. "We write for those who aren't affected by otherwise faceless stories,' he adds. So at 9 a.m. we're ready to head for Milton (me, Dailey and a cameraman) to hear the sentencing of two men guilty of defrauding the public for some $715 million. FALSE ALARM But.before we can even leave the parking lot the assignment editor is tell- ing us over the walkie- talkie about an ultralight aircraft crash in north Scarberia, We zoom out (Turn to page 9) a a ES,