Forget “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon”.  In the TV news business, you only need to have worked in two or three markets before you’re virtually (or, uh, virally) connected to any other newsie via someone else.  It’s like one big, extended, dysfunctional, vain family.  And I’m not even counting the crazy auntie you keep in the basement.

I was in DC over the weekend for a shoot.  While at WJLA, I ran in to the lovely Cynne’ Simpson, who used to work at the station where I currently freelance.  Even though we’d never met personally, we had 392 people in common.  She gushed.  I gushed.  And now — like all newsies everywhere — we’re besties.  (She, um, doesn’t know that that yet … but it’s an attainable goal.)

I met Cynne’ when I was visiting my friend Kris Van Cleave … who I met a month earlier when I was visiting my friend Ron Corning in Dallas.  Ron knows everyone … and, I mean everyone.  That’s because while I was biding my time in lil’ ol’ Des Moines, Ron’s shooting star went Supernova.  Before you know it, he was at ABC News rubbing elbows with Babs and Diane.

Oops … there I go again dropping names.  For the record, name dropping is the single most important rule in this whole “who-do-you-know-that-I-know” game.  It’s the catalyst for trying to appear more connected than you really are.  More on that in a minute.

There’s something about the news industry that, for better or worse, brings people together.  We’re a band of brothers.  A motley crew of camera-hogs that can get in to fisticuffs over a live shot one minute and then be buying beers for our news brethren the next …

But the absolute, most important thing in the whole world is who you know.  Or think you know.  Or pretend to know.  (Here’s the litmus test … if you’re actually friends with them on their personal Facebook page and not their “personality” page, you’re IN!)

For a while, I didn’t know anyone in Denver.  I thought I was losing my touch.  Mercifully, my buddy Jeremy Hubbard (who I worked with in KC) just got a job anchoring there.  I’m friends with his real FB page AND his personality page.  Double score.  AND, he used to work with Ron Corning at ABC.  Quadruple bonus point score.

How do I know so many people, you ask?  A decade ago, I was on the movie junket brigade for nearly an entire year.  Every weekend I’d be whisked away to either New York or LA to interview celebs schlepping their upcoming movies.  And every weekend I’d party like a rock star with different reporters from around the country.  I always assumed that it’s all about networking.  Nope.  The last time I reached out to any of those people was on the fourteenth of never.

You want to play the game?  Take a wild stab on how we know each other.  Or how I should know you. I’ll guarantee even though I’ve only worked in a smattering of medium-sized markets, we’re somehow connected via the news cosmos.  And the chances are even greater if you’re vapid, shallow or narcissistic.  (Yeah, I’m talking to you, Mark S. Allen.)  Plus, see if you can narrow down a connection to any of the aforementioned people.

As my buddy Wendy Chioji (who I worked with in Orlando for ten minutes) once said … “Game on!”