The Changing Face(s) of Local News

News 2 has been transforming the way we cover news for the last year. In case you have not been following the changes or just want a really good explanation of what has been going on around here, check out an article Terry Heaton wrote called The Changing Face(s) of Local News. It's pretty interesting and worth reading.

Me Working

A friend sent me the picture taken while I was working on a story about soldiers returning from Iraq. To tell the story, I decided to do a "nat" package, which is short for natural sound. Instead of using my voice to tell the story I used natural sound, in this case it was sound from six year old Hunter Brown and his Mom. I tried to let viewers see what Hunter experienced while waiting for his dad to get home. Check it out for yourself.

There are about 1500 of 20,000 101st soldiers home now so I will be doing several more of these homecoming stories. Do you get tired of them? What kind of stories would you like to see? Give me some feed back and your thought. I've got a few ideas in mind already but I bet you guys have some pretty good ideas of your own.

Center Hill Lake

I have been looking forward to getting back out on the lake this whole week. It has been two weeks since I been able to get out and take advantage of the smooth waters of Center Hill Lake. This summer, I been able to get out on the water fairly regularly. I had to work last Saturday, which was down right painful since the weather was perfect for the lake. Hot and sunny. My friend is threatening to revoke my boat privileges because I agreed to work. We have standing plans to hit the lake every weekend if the weather is good and he told me I should know better.

When the water is as smooth as glass it is the best time to ski. My wife learned to ski last summer and you should see her now. She is quite good and jumps the wake like a pro. I like to ride a wake board. Being able to cut into the wake and jump the entire wake is pretty cool. I working on pulling off a trick while I'm in the air. I will try to get some pics of the action to post next time.

101st Troops Come Home

Wednesday morning I went to Fort Campbell to do a story about soldiers returning from a year in Iraq. Family and friends gather in a holding area on the tarmac waiting for the first glimpse of their soldier. They have to wait behind a fence while the planes carrying their loved ones are unloaded. As the soldiers get off the plane they walk right past their cheering families but are still 15 minutes away from the hugs and kisses. The soldiers get into formation for a short welcome home ceremony inside a hanger. (I think the Army has a policy that nothing is official unless there is a ceremony first.) After a few quick speeches the moment everyone was waiting for finally arrives and they are released to visit with their loved ones.

As I was standing there watching everyone hugging and kissing the scene started to pull at my heart strings and my eyes started to get a little misty. I do believe I'm becoming more emotional in my old age. My wife used to tell me she thought I had a hard heart because I never should any emotion. I broke that trend about a year ago while covering the aftermath of Katrina. All of the emotions from the trip finally exploded out of me and I haven't been the same since:) I wrote about my experience last September on this blog.

Any way, it was great seeing families back together again. I will be covering more of the homecomings becasue this is just the begining of 20,000 troops returning to Ft. Cambell.

Election Day

Today is the primary election day in Tennessee. Today will also be the first day we cover the elections as a VJ station. We will have to see how it goes. Management has asked us VJ's to do a lot of quick coverage that can be used during our web cast as well as during the news cast. The idea will be to give viewers a look in as if they are there with us.
News 2 will also be doing a web cast and streaming election results for the first time ever. It should be a good day around here today.
I'm helping cover the Harold Ford Jr. Senate race and President Clinton is scheduled to show up at LP Field to show his support for Ford. I'm looking forward to seeing President Clinton and hope to get a chance to shake his hand.

On a side note. The VJ debate is once again making the rounds on message boards like B-roll.net. McGraw-Hill station group recently announced they are switching to VJ's. I have heard that some of there people will be coming to see how we do it at the deuce.


update...I wrote this entry last Thursday and for some reason I did not post it. Here it is on 8-9-06.. Sorry it is late and untimely but it's better late than never.---- I got very close to President Clinton and if I would have been paying attention to him instead of getting video, I would have shaken his hand. Oh well, there is always next time.

A operations manager, a news photographer and two reports from San Diego spent the day at the station on Monday to get a feel for how we operate at News 2.

Customer Service-A Thing of the Past

I'm ranting about the lack of customer service. It seems like the days of "the customer is always right" are long gone. It is hard to find a company that really wants to take care of there customers.
Early this year my wife and I decided to hire a yard company to help get our grass into shape. We have mostly weeds growing and thought it would be nice to have a good looking lawn with no weeds so we decided to use Tru Green. After talking with the salesman we set up a schedule for them to come and treat our yard. The first appointment came and went with no problems and Tru Green would even send reminder notices in the mail to let us know when the next appointment would be. This was great for us because we have two dogs and on the day of Tru Green's visit we would have to leave them in the house.
The problem with Tru Green started when they did not show up for an appointment. No big deal, stuff happens. The appointment was rescheduled and again Tru Green was a no show. This time I called and talked to a person and rescheduled the next appointment. The day came, we left the dogs inside and you guessed it, no Tru Green.
After three no shows I decided to discontinue the service. While canceling my account the girl said she figured I would cancel and did not even offer an apology or try to keep my business. I told my wife that they must have plenty of business and don't have to worry about keeping customers.
I didn't think any more about it until last week. Tru Green sent a letter inquiring why we left so my wife decided to call and tell them why we left. The next day at work, she emailed me and said she had called Tru Green and they were not nice on the phone. The conversation went like this.

TG- Hello.
Wife-Could I speak with So and So?
TG- Why?
Wife-We are prior customers of Tru Green.
TG- Yeah? So!?
Wife-I got a letter and he wanted to know why we left.
TG- (short) We will pass it on to him.

A week later we still have not heard anything back. We will never be customers of Tru Green again and I would not recommend them to anyone else.