Oh, you're a reporter ... so, what do you do?
When I tell someone I'm a crime and breaking news reporter, people frequently ask me what I actually do. It's an excellent question.
For all the time that people in this country spend talking about Media (with a big, scary capital "M"), most don't know how the stories that appear in newspapers are found, chosen and researched. And how would they? Unless you've been a reporter or been interviewed by one, you're mostly left to imagine the process, because we journalists generally don't spend much time explaining how our job works.
That's the idea for this blog. By giving you a peak behind the scenes on the crime and breaking news beat, we aim to give a fuller picture of how stories are born.
Let me give you an example:
Last week, I was at my computer working on small news items when I heard that a train had hit a car near Ventura. The accident was listed on the Ventura County Fire Department's web site, and it looked like someone had died.
I called the fire department to get as many details as I could, then grabbed a video camera rushed to the scene near Ventura with a Star photographer and an intern.
When we arrived we saw the train stopped alongside a farm field and a car that had been broken into two pieces.
Officials from the medical examiner's office were on scene, so we knew someone had died in the crash. At times like that I put up an emotional firewall. I am always sensitive to the fact that I'm dealing with a human tragedy, but I know we won't know about the person who tragically lost their life until medical examiners notify family members, so I focus on collecting the basic facts of the incident while remaining conscious that someone close by might know about the person who died.
I took some video of the scene, jotted a few notes, talked to a few train passengers who stepped outside to smoke and waited for the California Highway Patrol sergeant on scene to have a moment to talk to us.
After the interview, we rushed back to the office. I handed the video off to my friends in the digital media department, and they began editing. Meanwhile, I hustled to my computer and wrote up the story so we could put it online as soon as possible.
Later that night we learned from the medical examiners office that the young man who tragically lost his life was Jack Mabee, 17, of Oxnard.
When we learn the name of a person who was killed, the terrible reality of the tragedy really sinks in. At that point, we also have a new job to do. We do our best to learn whatever we can about the person who died in order to remember their life and explain as much as we can about the human tragedy of the incident.
In this case, we'll be learning about Jack by attending a walk in his honor on Thursday.
In addition to explaining the back story of the breaking news beat, we hope this blog will become a place where we can hear from you about public safety in Ventura County.
I'll be back with more soon when the scanner chatter gets interesting.
Stay safe.
When I tell someone I'm a crime and breaking news reporter, people frequently ask me what I actually do. It's an excellent question.
For all the time that people in this country spend talking about Media (with a big, scary capital "M"), most don't know how the stories that appear in newspapers are found, chosen and researched. And how would they? Unless you've been a reporter or been interviewed by one, you're mostly left to imagine the process, because we journalists generally don't spend much time explaining how our job works.
That's the idea for this blog. By giving you a peak behind the scenes on the crime and breaking news beat, we aim to give a fuller picture of how stories are born.
Let me give you an example:
Last week, I was at my computer working on small news items when I heard that a train had hit a car near Ventura. The accident was listed on the Ventura County Fire Department's web site, and it looked like someone had died.
I called the fire department to get as many details as I could, then grabbed a video camera rushed to the scene near Ventura with a Star photographer and an intern.
When we arrived we saw the train stopped alongside a farm field and a car that had been broken into two pieces.
Officials from the medical examiner's office were on scene, so we knew someone had died in the crash. At times like that I put up an emotional firewall. I am always sensitive to the fact that I'm dealing with a human tragedy, but I know we won't know about the person who tragically lost their life until medical examiners notify family members, so I focus on collecting the basic facts of the incident while remaining conscious that someone close by might know about the person who died.
I took some video of the scene, jotted a few notes, talked to a few train passengers who stepped outside to smoke and waited for the California Highway Patrol sergeant on scene to have a moment to talk to us.
After the interview, we rushed back to the office. I handed the video off to my friends in the digital media department, and they began editing. Meanwhile, I hustled to my computer and wrote up the story so we could put it online as soon as possible.
Later that night we learned from the medical examiners office that the young man who tragically lost his life was Jack Mabee, 17, of Oxnard.
When we learn the name of a person who was killed, the terrible reality of the tragedy really sinks in. At that point, we also have a new job to do. We do our best to learn whatever we can about the person who died in order to remember their life and explain as much as we can about the human tragedy of the incident.
In this case, we'll be learning about Jack by attending a walk in his honor on Thursday.
In addition to explaining the back story of the breaking news beat, we hope this blog will become a place where we can hear from you about public safety in Ventura County.
I'll be back with more soon when the scanner chatter gets interesting.
Stay safe.
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