What's In A Picture?

As I have mentioned before, one of the really great things about doing my job, is never knowing what will happen in the next second, which might become a story, or at least hot conversation in the newsroom. As an example, I was sitting at my desk writing the 6 pm news, while Victor Sotelo was editing video for a 6pm story at a computer about 10 feet from my desk. As we edit, the last frame of video is frozen in place, until the next video is ready to add on. When I happened to glance at the computer monitor, I was surprised at the image I saw. The frame I saw is below. What do you see? (It is actually a burning tree next to a house on fire in Abilene this weekend.)

I Want News

There are days, and then there are days. A large dry-erase board is on one wall of our newsroom. The day's assignments are posted there, with the reporters name assigned to the story, the story name and for which of our many newscasts it is expected to be completed.
As I may have mentioned before, there are days, and then there are days. Days are when the board is overflowing with projects completed or being developed but expected to be done. Days are when everyone also has an idea or two to toss into the mix about things we need to report, people we need to profile, story ideas to follow.
Days are when all the cameras are working, the batteries are all charged, the live trucks are all available, and people have remembered to put gas in all the news vehicles.
And then there are days. Like today. When the assignment board is about half full, there were not a lot of workable ideas presented, and one or two of those other things didn't fall into place. Sometimes, when it's a "slow" news day, there will be some stormy weather for Dan, or David has a new head football coach at a local high school.
And then there are days. Like today. Not a bad news day, just nothing really exciting, but still things you need to know about. We do our best to put together an interesting half hour of information, no matter what kind of day it has been in the newsroom.
But the wonderful thing about the news business is we never know what's going to happen in the next minute which will create our Top Story for a day like tomorrow.
That's when we'll be back with all the news that hasn't happened yet.....

Breaking News

Most evenings we can all take a dinner break between the 6 and 10 o'clock newscasts..
That's MOST evenings.. But when there are severe storms in the KTAB viewing area, or when there is Breaking News, its all hands on deck.. We listen to police and fire radios and scanners all day.. Accidents, fires, shootings.. Those are all incidents we may hear on the police/fire radios.. Of course, we get phone calls and e-mails from viewers about what's going on too..
I also have radios and scanners at home.. My wife has "good ears" to pick up what's happening.. My children hated the scanners, but actually have heard useful news over the years.. Obviously, we use the information only for news coverage..
Wednesday (04-08) I was home for a meal break when the Abilene Fire Department started broadcasting a fire at The Windsor, a multi-story retirement community at North 4th and Pine, downtown.. In news, we really (believe me) don't wish for bad things to happen, but when they do, we have to be prepared to cover them.. That fire call ended my dinner break.. My wife put my dinner in a plastic dish, and I rushed back to the station, just in case.. Altho there was significant smoke and water damage to several apartments, there were no serious injuries and this did not turn into a major event (unless you live in one of those damaged apartments)..
This will obviously lead our newscast at 10pm.. But things are under control, and we have a plan for the 10pm news..
So, that gives me an opportunity to write this.....

What You Get May Not Be What You Want

So, "gang initiation is calling for shooting 3 women shoppers at Wal-mart." The phone is ringing off the hook around here. Reporters are being questioned at every story they cover. Abilene Police hold a news conference. People are really worried.
But its all a HOAX!! A message that was first sent more than a year ago by e-mail, is being recycled now by text message. And it is spreading coast to coast. It is not just in Abilene, Brownwood, or Sweetwater where there are Wal-marts in the Big Country. It is wherever there is a Wal-mart.
In these days of violent gangs and terrorists, I understand the concern. But this message shows the skeptical eye which we have to use in this day of instant communication. Just because it is on the Internet or on your cell phone, doesn't make it real. Anyone can put anything out there and you have to be able to sift thru what you get to figure out what you may not want.....like a bunch of malarkey which is being used to hold us in terror.
That's why we're here. We can be had, just like anyone else. But generally, a news operation like KTAB has enough contacts to find out the story behind the story. We try to live up to "Coverage You Can Count On" everyday, on every story. (We mentioned Wal-mart threat was a hoax when we started getting calls Wednesday night.)
And something else worries me....postings on Facebook and myspace. But I'll get to that next time.

Time Passes

Not sure if it is just "getting old" or having a long memory. But either way, sometimes a story just happens to cross my desk that flashes me back in time. This day, it was the story of an Army soldier who wears and has special affection for a bracelet with a Texas soldier's name on it. The name is that of Sergeant James Casey Joyce who was killed in Mogadishu, Somalia in October of 1993. His grandmother was long time Abilene resident and loyal KTAB viewer Mary Galbraith. She passed away a few years ago, but was well known and very active in Abilene. Casey was part of the group of 18 Americans killed on October 3rd during a firefight in which a Blackhawk helicopter was shot down by gunmen of a Somalian warlord. Sgt. Joyce was a part of a ground unit in a Humvee. The movie "Blackhawk Down" is based on what happened to Sgt. Joyce and the 17 other soldiers who died that day.
I did not know Casey, but I did know his grandmother. The story brings to mind the many Americans who have served and died for their country. Proud of all of them.
My recollection is of Somalia. I was there with the 463rd Airlift Wing, Dyess Air Force Base a year before the Blackhawk Down incident. A group of journalists flew to Somalia at Christmas time 1992 to showcase the effort by the United States to save lives. Somalia was in a long drought and thousands of people were dying from starvation. The 463rd flew the C-130 Hercules cargo aircraft from Mombasa, Kenya, up the coast of the Indian Ocean to Somalia. Many flights were to the capital, Mogadishu, but others were to remote airstrips to drop off tons of grain and other food items. Pilots flew low over the runway to scare away animals and make sure the right people were there to pick up the supplies. Navigators made sure we were at the right place. The crew in the back sweated over the cargo, its loading and unloading. It was hot. On my desk in the newsroom, I still have a 1.5 litre water bottle (Kilimanjaro Mountain Spring Water)which everyone carried or kept near by. Drank a lot of water.
I have some great video of the Somalians carrying the heavy bags of grain and putting them in the back of trucks, then taking a break, dancing and singing. Video was used for individual news stories and a half hour special which aired right around Christmas, 1992.
Probably most of the people in those tapes are long gone from the Air Force... That was nearly 20 years ago. Operations Provide Relief and Restore Hope, may have been the name of the operation. The journalists, I was the only one from Abilene television to go, flew there and back in a C-141 from the New Jersey Air National Guard. Altho, on the way home, I hopped on an American Airlines DC-10 at Frankfurt/Rhein-Main and flew non-stop to DFW.
That trip to Africa was one of the many great opportunities I've had to work and travel with the fine folks at Dyess.

Welcome

What's it like having your first grandchild visit for the first time? It is great. It happened this weekend when his parents needed to travel on business. The three month old stayed at our place. It has been a long time since we have had a baby in the house. I had forgotten what that's like. It was really neat, what with the smiling, and looking all around, and finding objects to concentrate on, like the ceiling.
It was a joy just to watch. It was nice to have our two sons around to help with their nephew. Feedings every three hours, sleep but not quite on a regular schedule, diapers. My wife and I knew all of that well with our five children. But it is different when it's not your child. Special care required. It's fun to see his joy as he learns about the world around him. The world won't always be so pleasant, but he can enjoy it now.
I miss all our children being gone, although I know that's what happens. Same for the newest member of the family. He's been gone just a little while, but I miss him already.

Look, Up In The Sky.....

For those who don't remember, the title for tonight's theme is the opening line from the "Superman" tv series of the 1950's. I would write the entire opening announcer voice over if I had time and there wasn't some copyright infringement probably lurking.
What brings that to mind is several phone calls and emails to KTAB. "What were those lights in the sky?" I have checked on unusual lights in the sky for years. Usually, its the sun reflecting off a weather balloon launched from Marfa and climbing to 100,000 feet plus. Or a B-1 or C-130 doing patterns at Dyess or tracking the VOR. Or a jetliner cruising at FL350. But calling the police, sheriff, DPS and feds as I have just done, usually gets you the "Huh? and stifled laughter" treatment. Same this 1/29 when lights displaying an unusual, intermittent pattern were reported generally to the southeast of Abilene.
The last time the lights were called in from roughly this area, a blimp with unusual anti-collision lights was making a nighttime landing at Abilene Regional Airport. The tower reported no blimp or any other unusual aircraft tonight. No calls from panicked citizens to local law enforcement. But calls and emails to us.
A callback from one of those folks had the answer. The military was doing some training near Brownwood. There is special military air space near Brownwood where lots of military training from helicopters to jets is done. This night, they were dropping flares from aircraft. As the caller told me, he had seen flares at night in Iraq, and they are brilliant. And that's what folks saw, as we reported on KTAB News at 10. Flares from military aircraft as part of an exercise. No UFO..... Sorry.....
"....it's a bird, it's a plane.. No it's Superman... Superman, strange visitor from another planet with powers and..."