Throughout my broadcast career, I told thousands of stories. I covered crime, the courts, city and county government, weather, and so much more.  Here are a few of the memorable ones.

 

Hard News Reporting

In this exclusive investigative story, I look into why school districts are reluctant to install seat belts on school buses. This came after I obtained surveillance video via a Freedom of Information request of a school bus rollover in a rural community.

A homeowner called the station to report that there were pit bulls on the loose. I scheduled a time to interview the man. On my way to his home, I came across the dogs and started to film from within my news van. The story won a Murrow Award for “Hard News Reporting.”

Not often do you have murder suspect confess to shooting his victims. However, that happened during a jailhouse interview. The man claimed self-defense. After the interview, his attorney told him to no longer talk to the media. Several years later, a jury convicted him.

In this next story, it seemed like whenever police officers shot and killed a suspect, people called foul. We obtained cellphone video of this deadly shooting, and I used the timer on my editing software to see exactly how much time transpired before officers opened fire.

The following story is of another officer-involved shooting. The officer was wearing a body camera. My news director and I made the decision not to air the sound of the gunfire in addition to not showing the actual shooting. Would you do the same?

In this report, a homeowner, his son, and neighbors talked about their violent encounter with two home-invasion suspects. The homeowner met the couple earlier in the day when they inquired about renting from him. The suspects apparently had other plans.

You can’t help but feel heartache for the mother of a woman who a vehicle dragged to death. I was good at getting interviews with people who were in distress. They could see that I really cared about their circumstance and was not putting up a front to get an interview.

This was a sad story of a man who lost his wife to the swine flu. I gained a reputation of always willing to travel to distant rural communities to tell stories that mattered. My news director supported my effort and gave me the liberty to do so. One of the reasons was that he knew that I could write and edit fast and make tight deadlines while working solo.

I found this next story pretty bizarre. Neighbors called the station to complain to us about an aggressive dog that was attacking people. For whatever reason, they didn’t talk directly to the dog’s owner about it. So, I did and was actually surprised that the owner was willing to go on camera.

What happened in this story was the cause of a lot of misinformation on the web. As a video journalist, I work alone. I was shooting my standup at the precise moment that the roof collapsed at the plant, sending a fireball skyward. Seeing this, I quickly got behind my camera to film the aftermath. Various news outlets got hold of the footage and added their own caption. One said that I “barely escaped.” Another wrote that I ran away. I guess they did not know that I, as a reporter, also shot my own video. This was a prime example of news outlets not verifying the “facts.”

Feature Stories

Few civilians ever get to fly in a U.S. military jet. I am one of them!  The Air Force Thunderbirds selected me for a V.I.P flight. I became a proud member of the 9G club after pulling 9G’s in the F-16.

Did you know there is actually a National UFO Reporting Center. I interviewed the man who runs it in a decommissioned missile silo that he bought to house his documents.

You can’t get across your collapsed driveway? Build a zip line. How does that even cross a person’s mind?

I can’t imagine why anybody would willfully subject their body to what I captured in this next story.

The following story put me out of work for two days when I sprained my ankle stepping into a hole while running with my camera.

Speaking of running, the only way I could get the interviews I did for this next story was to run with the race participants while holding my full-sized professional news camera. I interviewed each person while running beside them. In between interviews, I ran back to my news van and drove a quarter mile ahead of the next race participant. When they approached I ran with them until I got a couple good soundbites. I did all this while wearing dress shoes. Next time I know to be better prepared.

This next story had an hilarious outtake that I promised the student that I interviewed that I would never post. Regardless, the story gave me some good laughs.

Apparently, I did not know how much dogs like peanut butter. The YouTube video used in the following story went viral. I got lucky catching the dog’s owner for an interview when she stopped home for a brief lunch break.

A mother enrolled her young children in an infant self rescue class. Learning the survival skills saved her son’s life.