"What? Why?" he stammers. "That's the number we need."
"Go!Somebody's coming. I heard a voice. They're coming!"
Becky Oliver reports that DART employees are running amok with corporate credit cards. The stories upset DART officials, who say she didn't find a single example of any wrongdoing on their part. Below, Oliver singled out a DART policy she found questionable.
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My friend pulls out of the alley, cursing. "I don't think you're going to make it in the stakeout business."
He was right. I am a chicken. The ambush was something I just couldn't bring myself to do, even if Becky Oliver has one coming.
Besides, it was the wrong house.
The effort, however, wasn't a total loss. I see that it takes a certain personality to ambush somebody, and that is precisely the reason Oliver is a household name in Dallas. Later, I decide to give Oliver another shot. I track down her home number and call her on her day off.
As it turns out, the former insider was right: Oliver can't stand the idea of surprise callers at home. No unwanted visitors have ever approached her home, but she says she tries to keep her personal information private to prevent that from happening. "I don't think that I'm paranoid," Oliver says. "I think that I'm being cautious."
During the conversation, which Oliver occasionally interrupts to tell her 2-year-old that "mommy's on a very important phone call," Oliver is pleasant. She tells me about her kids and the new boat she got to go water skiing. While an undergraduate at Kansas State University, she first wanted to be an actress but wound up majoring in broadcast journalism with designs of being an anchorwoman or a host. She later committed herself to investigative reporting as a graduate at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.
"I credit the teachers there at Northwestern with really putting the emphasis on making a difference in your community," Oliver says.
But does Oliver think her work is making a difference in the Dallas community? Did her DART stories serve the public by presenting an accurate impression of the agency? When she ambushes people, is Oliver casting their behavior in a truthful light, or is she distorting their actions just to give herself the appearance of being an effective journalist? In the Polk story, did she really safeguard the public against a rapist, or did she wander into a type of dispute that arises between people every day? Is that news?
Unfortunately, Oliver says she can't talk about any of that. Lawyer's orders.
"All I can say is, if you can just find a way to get this muzzle off of me I'd be happy to talk to you. I'm in a position right now where I really don't want to lose my job over this," Oliver says. With that she ticks off the list of subject areas her bosses have instructed her not to discuss. "You cannot discuss your role as an investigative reporter, your jobs, your ethics, anything about sweeps, anything about how you put your stories together," Oliver says. "They've gone over everything with me."
I still have my doubts about Becky Oliver, but also I am left with a notebook full of unanswered questions. So I'll try to keep my mind open. I wouldn't want to jump to any bad conclusions.
