I am proud to work for WDHN. I am closing in on finishing up my third year with the station owned by Nexstar. During that time I have learned a lot and feel like I am a better news-person than I was before this opportunity.
You see I spent 17 years in the newspaper business. I covered everything. I wrote sports. I wrote news. I wrote obituaries. I broke stories. Heck, I even sold some advertising.
But during my time at WDHN, I have had the opportunity to lead our coverage on some great stories. Some of the stories were not so great and some of those stories were big.
The biggest by far we just call "Boy in the Bunker". People are still amazed that a team of six people covered that story from start to finish and covered it well. We pride ourselves on being "First" in local news and many take that to mean that we want to get the story first -- and for those of you that think that and read this -- you simply don't have a clue.
I will say -- we had the store early on that tragic day when Mr. Charles Poland was shot and killed while trying to protect the students on his school bus near Midland City. I don't know that we were first -- Rickey Stokes was probably first - but we were on top of it quickly.
We were first to report that the madman, Jimmy Lee Dykes, was dead and the boy he had taken hostage, Ethan, was alive and well. It was some tense moments in our newsroom that I will share more about in due time.
But when it comes that story -- I have to ask the question -- when is enough really enough?
We are four months out from that story and ABC's 20/20 got a big exclusive ahead of all other media outlets. That was big for our station. I can tell you -- we don't have a clue how ABC got the exclusive. I have a few ideas from my dealings with the network I work with on a daily basis.
The story was fine and put together well. But since that time all the other media outlets have had the story. I carried most weekend newscasts in the state. That's all fine and well.
But today -- five days since the 20/20 report there are reporters who are still creating stories -- that say what is already been said -- but leading people to believe that it is something new on the story.
I leave you with a simple question at the end of this ramble -- when is enough really enough on stories like this?
