CBS News' Steve Hartman goes to great lengths to find stories

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 took viewers inside the frosty relationship of a father and his teenage daughter. 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.

'95 percent'

"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 reporter who was looking for his niche, Hartman tried a few of the stories for the defunct newsmagazine Public Eye. It 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.

Hard news reporters may look down upon such work. But don't underestimate the reporting skills that go into finding the best tales and the storytelling ability that makes them work.

"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, who serves as his own producer and editor, 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.

Tough topics

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 methodically 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 spoke to him for the piece.

Often one of his hardest jobs is convincing people he's called that he's serious and wants to talk to them. His personal record is 44 calls before someone agreed.

Those who finally agree to sit down with him find Hartman to be an easy person to talk to, Murphy said.

"I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out why this has resonated with people," Hartman said. "I'm not sure I've come up with the answer. So much of the news isn't relevant to people's lives -- scandals and corruption and war. By the nature of what we do, we find stories that affect people's lives."

He rarely visits cities, although he has been to Phoenix, Charlotte and Miami.

Hartman used to close his eyes and throw the dart himself. Now, when he's done speaking to a subject, he lets them do the tossing.

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

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