CBS reporter finds almost everyone has a story worth telling

By David Bauder
Associated Press

NEW YORK — Every few weeks, Steve Hartman of CBS News learns the location of his next assignment when a stranger turns away from a map of the United States, then tosses a dart over his shoulder in its direction.

Wherever the dart lands, Hartman goes. Then he picks up a local phone book, begins dialing numbers at random, and profiles the first person who agrees to meet with him on the "CBS Evening News."

Cute idea. And one might expect an overdose of cute stories about Aunt Martha's petunias and Jimmy's winning touchdown pass.

Yet in Hartman's hands, the regular "Everybody Has a Story" segment is often one of the most poignant and absorbing things you'll see on the evening news.

Hartman recently profiled an elderly woman haunted by the death of her infant in a fire 50 years ago. He met a woman who, after learning she couldn't have children, became a foster mother and hero to children she rescued. He found a shy Gulf War veteran who proposed to his girlfriend over the phone and mailed her the ring, and a North Carolina funeral director who's kept a mummy in his garage for 60 years.

Everybody, it seems, really does have a story.

"I don't know if it's true that everyone has a compelling story," Hartman corrects. "I would say that 95 percent of people have a compelling story. But that would be way too long a title."

Hartman, 39, credits a newspaper reporter, David Johnson of Lewiston, Idaho, with the idea. A feature writer who was looking for his niche, Hartman tried a few of the stories for the defunct newsmagazine Public Eye. They drew a good response; he kept doing them for other broadcasts, and the evening news began it as a regular segment a year and a half ago.

"They're great people stories," said Jim Murphy, executive producer of the "CBS Evening News." "They almost always give you a life lesson that you can take away and use yourself."

Hartman tries to play strictly by his rules of randomness. He commits to profiling the first person who agrees, even if he starts to regret it.

"It's the scariest thing I've ever done," he said. "Every time you meet someone for the first time and they say, 'I'm sorry, I don't have a story,' at least for a little while, I believe them."

He's bent his rules slightly, not necessarily profiling the first person that answers the phone at a house. Still, he wrung one story out of a 5-year-old boy who visits his beloved grandmother's grave every day.

Tough topics don't bother him. Hartman had finished a story when he was tipped off that his subject had been fired from his job for sexual harassment. He redid the report.

Another time, Hartman was questioning a woman and asked about her relationship with her family.

"She said, 'That's probably my story,' " and told of pressing molestation charges against her grandfather, sending him to jail. The grandfather even was interviewed for the piece.

Often one of Hartman's hardest jobs is convincing people that he's serious and wants to talk to them. Those who agree to sit down with him find Hartman to be an easy person to talk to, Murphy said.

Texas has been hit by the dart more times than any other state. He rarely visits cities, though he's been to Phoenix, Charlotte and Miami. He used to throw the dart himself. Now, when he's done speaking to a subject, he lets them toss.

Oh, there's one way he's cheated. Hartman enlarged the state of Hawai'i by 30 percent on his map.

Much to his chagrin, the dart still hasn't landed there.