Reminiscing...

My colleague Carson Clark recently wrote a post about his first week at NewsChannel 19. He recently marked his 8th anniversary as a full-time staff member, although he interned here before that.

Carson and I go way back. We worked in Tuscaloosa together, and both went to the University of Alabama. I remember he came to intern at our old station, NewsChannel 49 in Tuscaloosa (now WVUA-7 News) and he wore a mint green shirt on St. Patrick's Day. I thought that was funny, because Carson is pretty conservative, yet he wore that colorful shirt.

You can check out Carson's blog here.


You can check out Carson's blog here. I keep encouraging him to update it more often!

Well, anyway, back to my first week at NewsChannel 19. My first day was October 16, 2000 a Monday, just after my birthday on the 13th. I trained on days for 2 weeks, then switched over to overnights to produce NewsChannel 19 This Morning.

Remember the Jason Hayes story? (No relation to Jerry). Jason Hayes was a local sailor injured in the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole. NewsChannel 19 flew him and his wife, Roxanne, back to Huntsville for a hero's welcome.



It was nice gesture. However, we put our 19 logo all over the private jet, so that when it flew in to the airport, it became a "NewsChannel 19 event." We even had one of our employees act as a bodyguard so none of the other TV stations could get to him. And those general managers called our TV station, ticked at what we did, as they should.



I didn't know what to think. This was my first week, and I had come to work with a great group of people at NewsChannel 19 - but this was a shock to me. We caught heat about this from all kinds of media organizations - we bought this story, they claimed, and in my opinion, they were right.



We haven't done anything like that since that week in October 2000... and I'm glad about that. Don't get me wrong, it's great to "own" a story, but not like that.

Marriage License Struggle

I've been meaning to write about this for a few days. Maybe I should change the name of my blog to "Things That Drive Claire Crazy" - James-Paul Dice suggested I do a blog like this a year ago. I promise all my blog posts won't be about my pet peeves... maybe I'm just trying to get a few things out of my system.

This one has to do with an article in the Huntsville Times over the weekend. It was a GREAT article, by Patricia C. McCarter, about one couple's wedding at Huntsville Hospital, in the bride's room. There's something about it that set me off, though.

Kimberly Douglas had been involved in bad auto accident while driving to see her fiance, Troy Morgan, who is an airman stationed near Valdosta, GA. She had four fractured vertebrae, cracked ribs, a huge gash on her head. She wore a neck brace in her hospital bed, but the picture on the front page of the Huntsville Times by Eric Schultz showed her gorgeous smile, when she got to marry Troy.

The story had me in tears. I loved it. Great job to Patricia and Eric for their teamwork on it, and to Eric for the "money shot" of the groom kissing his bride.

Here's the article, unfortunately, it doesn't have the pictures.

There was one part of the article that made my blood boil, though. The red tape the couple had to go through, to get a marriage license.

In the article, it states Troy went to the Madison County Courthouse to apply for a marriage license, but the employee said no, the bride had to be there, too.

(Did that employee listen to the couple's predicament? I'm sure Troy nicely explained it to him or her, that his fiancee was not able to make it that day). "Sorry, no bride, no license."

That is our state government at its finest. Could the office not have sent someone to the hospital, with the necessary papers, so Troy and Kimberly could sign them together? I mean, it's about customer service, people. You work for Alabama's citizens. Their taxes pay your salaries. Why not give them something back in return, about 15 or 20 minutes of your time.

Working at NewsChannel 19, we try to go out of our way to help viewers. We can't help everyone who calls, or comes in with a story. We have a limited staff, but we make the best effort we can to find solutions for people who need them, or at least point them in the right direction.

It's a good thing the hospital chaplain knew a judge in Fayetteville, Tennessee who could help Kimbery and Troy. They got a marriage license after all, and they're now happily married. In fact, I see that Kimberly just got released from the hospital after having surgery, and she's at a relative's home in Tuscumbia, resting.

I wish the couple many, many happy, healthy years together. You deserve it!

Big Media People

I want to write about big media people who go a little too far on the airwaves. Keith Olbermann got on my nerves for a comment he made last week.
Something had happened at the top of the news, which caused his live shot not to be ready - the director went to a fill-in host, or someone standing by until they had Keith ready... she did a nice job, and was only up for a minute or two.

Then, they went to Keith out of a soundbite. He made some comment like "we apologize for that unforgiveable technical mistake". Maybe he was just apologizing, thinking the mistake was unforgiveable for some ticked off viewer out there, but to me, it sounded like he was criticizing someone behind the scenes. Maybe a producer, or an engineer.. who knows why they didn't take Keith off the top of the show, but who cares. He was just going to criticize someone anyway once he started his diatribe of the night.

I do like some of what Olbermann does - he is highly critical of politicians with too much power (guess who I'm talking about here) and I appreciate that. The media should hold the powerful accountable, although I don't want to see 24/7 coverage of it, which is what we have today with all the cable news outlets.

Maybe I read too much into his comment about an "unforgiveable" technical mistake. Maybe not. If you're going to criticize someone behind-the-scenes for a mistake in getting you on the air, do it off the air. It's embarassing enough for that person, and sometimes, it's out of their control.

What to Say, What to Say...

Okay... I've now discovered why people don't update their blogs every day. Besides the time factor, you really have to come up with something to say!

And, you don't want to insult too many people, so I won't post my strongest opinions on here. I do have some, by the way. I moderate "The Rant" forum on WHNT.com and would love to jump into a few discussions on there to tell people where to stick it. But, for the most part, I just bite my tongue and wear my journalist hat, and let people go back and forth.

That is one of the tough things about being a journalist. Keeping your personal opinions to yourself. The blog world has laxed that a bit, and you see people writing opinions here and there, and that's fine. I just choose not to do it, for the most part. Someone jumped on my religion the other day though, and I couldn't keep quiet. He apologized. He is a frequent Rant poster, so I can't get too mad at him. I do appreciate people who keep coming back to WHNT.com!

I guess I'll talk about some of my co-workers at NewsChannel 19. A lot of people ask me "what is Jerry Hayes like? What is Steve Johnson like? Is Greg Screws really 9 feet tall?"

Yes, Greg Screws really is tall.. probably more like 6'5" though. He can't play basketball worth a lick, though, and he admits that.

Steve Johnson and Jerry Hayes are two of the nicest men you'll ever meet. They are gentlemen in every sense of the word. Steve loves to read (so does Greg, when he's not growing taller).. and can have a conversation about anything. Steve sits across from me, and sometimes I'll forget he's there and I'll start singing a tune.. Steve will say "Claire, I love it when you sing" and I'll be embarassed for a moment. But, he's nice to say that. Now, I don't mind it too much any more.

I love to sing, by the way. My husband Joey and I do a great karaoke version of 'Love Shack" by the B-52's. At least, we think so!

Greg is a nice guy, too. He's a newlywed, and loves his family. His daughter Emily goes to the University of Alabama and he couldn't be more proud of her.

Jerry is a hoot. He loves country music and telling us about his adventures with his identical twin brother, Terry. Did you know the two of them tried out for the Dukes of Hazzard? This was when Jerry had a bigger hairdo (a 'fro') and he wore the jeans, plaid shirt, boots, the whole nine yards. He also wants to marry Sara Evans. (Jerry's, she's single again!)

Jerry is also super-proud of his two daughters.

There are many others I could tell you about - Carson Clark is one of them. One of the most humble people you'll ever meet, and quiet, too. He also hasn't updated his blog in a while, (like, since he voted in June) but I keep asking him to.

Amber Stuart is a good buddy of mine. She keeps a blog, too, and does update it several times a week! I did a few guest posts on Amber's blog - one about Harry Potter, one about Keith Urban - and I guess that gave me the push to do my own.

There are many others I'll talk about in future posts. I'm really blessed to work with some great people here at NewsChannel 19. No, I'm not toting the company line. You hear about big egos in TV, but we're fortunate not to have them here. When I interned at a Birmingham station in 1997, there were some egos at that place, which will remain unnamed.. but we're in a good situation at WHNT. We work together well, I think.

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog! I created this back in March, but have been too lazy to get around to posting on it. I figured after a few "guest blogs" on friends' sites, I should actually start my own.
I'll try to update this a few times a week. I welcome your comments!

I am currently the web content manager at WHNT. That basically means I oversee most of the website (the content portion) - you know, stories, videos, graphics, etc. Another girl handles the ad portion of it, and we collaborate on different things.

I used to produce for NewsChannel 19, which means I wrote the stories the anchors read during the newscast. That also meant throwing in breaking news at the last minute, etc. There's a lot to producing, and I'm glad not to be doing it anymore! I do fill in from time to time when we get desperate.

We'll talk later!