A week of breaking news

Don't blink or you'll miss a new, unfolding spot news story.

Holy cow! What a whirlwind since the very beginning of the new year.

Some of this week's highlights include a home invasion/stabbing in, of all places, Pepper Pike. Dave Summers and Randy White started out on this story...which began with a wkyc viewer calling me the minute I stepped on the news assignment desk asking if we were going to do anything on the incident in Pepper Pike overnight? I had not even logged on the computer but took down the man's information...looked in our computer and when I did not see any information tossed a call to Pepper Pike. They were very forthcoming in what happened and immediately faxed over the information. In our effort to be first online, with Twitter, on Facebook and everywhere else, we tipped off the competition to this story. However, they did not get as much as Dave and his crew.

Now normally the aforementioned story would lead the news....unless you wind up stumbling onto a standoff /hostage situation in the Walgreens in Barberton.

Akron wizard extraordinaire Eric Mansfield received a call from a contact telling him about the situation....he made a few calls, pinned down exactly what was happening and we re-routed Dave Summers and his crew Randy out that way. I also dispatched a live truck to meet them in order to feed back video and go live.

In the meantime, we had another soldier killed overseas, and on the lighter side, the story we had been tracking about the Yorkie theft had a break in the case. The suspect was busted and the cute little Yorkie rescued.

While the reporters and producers are writing this all up for air, I'm going as fast as I can to get the ever flowing 'new' news on our website--hopefully before the competition.

If that was not enough, houses and gas lines started catching fire in Fairport Harbor....what an amazing story. I can not even believe how fast this story spread (no pun intended). Our crews were out at the scene for at least 2 days non-stop bringing the latest developments to our viewers on air and on-line. We had so much video coming back to the station and being fed back, it was hard to keep track of every element. We also really implemented our new Mobile 3 Live Gear which we recently put into play. Without getting technical, it's live gear basically in a backpack which allows you to pretty much go live from almost anywhere....Pretty snazzy stuff.

When Dominion East Ohio and the Mayor held their first presser, I listened in while they were feeding it back live.....and immediately put an update on wkyc.com. At the same time, our producer was doing the same to get the story ready for air....

But wait, there is more.....a few days later, Summit County officials uncovered a house having Ricin inside. Hmmm, interesting. For the next few days, officials, FBI, Homeland Security, Sheriff, men in funny HAZMAT suits roamed every inch. Another story Eric Mansfield and Carl Bachtel won hands down. They checked the house each day and were allowed closer than any other tv station. In fact, one day Carl was on the scene solo. No other stations were there. They were digging and searching with all kinds of activity. There was a press conference away from the scene where everyone else did their live shots....then I got the call from Carl saying "I'm here all alone." While he was giving me the lowdown on his scene, I was relaying to the producers and newsroom. For a few minutes, it was quite confusing because the press conference going on simultaneously with the search never mentioned that a concurrent search was happening. But, let's face it. When you have a stellar crew on site, seeing with his own eyes what's shakin' you have to go with it and totally trust your crews in the field.

And folks, all of the above is why I love what I do, where I do it and no day is EVER boring or uneventful!