The Only Story That Tom Colbert Hasn’t Gotten: His Own : ‘We ask, “How’s the wife, how are the kids and, by the way, do you have any stories for us?” ’

Hey, Tom Colbert: Check out this story!

It’s got everything you look for in a newspaper article: Romance, drugs, violence, country music-singing Siamese twins. Babies, dogs, the Ku Klux Klan.

The makings of a dynamite tabloid TV piece could be hidden here. Maybe even a best-selling book or a movie of the week. Who knows?

If anybody knows, it’s Colbert.

He spends his days searching the country for small-town stories that can be turned into big-time films and television show segments.

A network of 500 tipsters--mostly newspaper reporters--keep him supplied with tales of mischief and mayhem from their hometowns. Colbert feeds 50 of the best tips each week to producers and editors who seem to have an insatiable appetite for such stories.

If “Inside Edition” wants to film harvest time at a heavily guarded Mississippi marijuana farm owned and operated by the federal government, Colbert knows how to find it.

If the Globe tabloid wants write about the Maine girl who helped hide the body of her mother’s boyfriend in a woodshed, he knows how to find her.

If ABC is interested in a network movie based on “an entire Louisiana school board being investigated for drugs,” he knows who they are.

Movie posters from “Deadline USA,” “Hot News” and “Front Page Story” decorate the tabloid tip service’s tiny Hollywood office. Colbert calls his company IndD and says he started it 1 1/2 years ago after spending 12 years as a story researcher--first at KCBS-TV and later with the show “Hard Copy.”

“I’d always felt that for 50 years radio and TV had ripped off local reporters--taking their stories without compensating them,” Colbert said. “We don’t do that.”

His 17 clients each pay several thousand dollars a month for thrice-weekly tip sheets. They also promise to pay individual tipsters fees ranging from $100 to $300 for ideas that turn into shows or stories.

Better yet, film producers and publishers using the service have agreed to let the local tipster have first crack at writing the script or book manuscript if a movie or book deal develops.

That means most informants do not have to be prodded for story ideas. A Miami writer faxes a dozen or so a day on Colbert’s toll-free line. One in Kankakee, Ill., scours newspapers from several Midwestern states for ideas. Others send copies of stories from their papers.

“Since we’ve already printed them, my editors don’t care,” said Steve Terrell, a reporter for the tiny Santa Fe New Mexican who said he has sent dozens and dozens of tips. “They’d be proud if one of our stories was made into a TV movie.”

To make certain nothing slips through the cracks, Colbert’s own researchers keep in close contact with tipsters. Heidi Berinstein, Bruce Jacobs, Sarah Burton and Bruce Brodoff each call about 30 correspondents a day to chat--and discuss local events.

“We ask, ‘How’s the wife, how are the kids and, by the way, do you have any stories for us?’ ” said Colbert, 36, of Chatsworth. “If we haven’t gotten a story out of Boise in a couple of weeks, there’s a problem. They’re filling the Boise paper with something .”

Colbert estimates that 10,000 tips have landed on his desk so far. About 3,000 of them have been deemed good enough to pass on to clients. Half of those have been pursued by producers and editors.

Eighty-two of the stories have been identified as potential book projects. And 18 of them have been placed with producers as movie of the week projects, according to Colbert.

“There are a lot of books there,” said book agent Bill Birnes, who is negotiating with one publisher for 10 of the stories and with another for five more.

Producer Daniel L. Paulson, one of five filmmakers who subscribe to the tip service, said it gives him a jump on other reality-based network movie makers. “It’s like having 50 or 75 people across the country finding me stories. They find things that haven’t been on the news wires yet,” he said.

One of Colbert’s story ideas--about a child-adoption scam--was turned into last Monday’s NBC movie, “Baby Brokers,” according to executive producer Robert Dalrymple.

Another, involving a singer who helped solve the murder of her mother, turned into romance. Last year, Colbert married the subject of that story--entertainer Dawna Kay.

On a personal level, that story may be hard for Colbert to top. But on the professional level, his tipsters keep trying.

They have found a Florida man fighting his condo neighbors over keeping a pet dog that his doctor ordered him to take for daily walks as “a medical necessity.”

They have found a Florida Ku Klux Klan member who donated his organs before he died, causing a headache for officials who have to honor his request: “White organ recipients only.”

And there are the Siamese twins from Pennsylvania. They have more than the expected problems, Colbert said.

“One wants to hit the road and be a country singer, but the other isn’t up for it.”