The F5 Nobody: A terrible idea to stop spree killers
When I was young, I had a recurring dream that the man who lived down the street planned to kill me. In reality, the guy worked for City Utilities and drove a green work...
Category: TV news
Cracking the comments code
This may surprise you, but I know a little more about crack cocaine than the average 37-year-old guy who grew up in a semi-rural community in southwest Missouri. I know how it’s made, how...
Charles Wakefield, finally free
It was, in the jargon of my people, a scoop. I happened on it almost by accident. I had a habit of checking through probation, pardon, and parole records to see who was staying...
Responsibility, the internet’s condom
If you have the clap and somebody wants to get in your pants, whose job is it to tell that person that you have the clap? That’s the question I posed this morning as...
Journalism and the Palmetto State of play
Union County, South Carolina was barely on the map in 1993. There was no easy way to get there by interstate highway. It wasn’t even the place drivers ended up by accident. It was...
Balloon Boy is your fault
This is your fault. Certainly, there’s a lot of blame to go around, but most of the people who are pointing fingers at the Henne family tonight should turn off their TV and look...
Mark Sanford boned me
Barbecue makes me hot, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. Whether the sauce is based in ketchup, mustard, or vinegar, it might as well be Spanish Fly shaken with raw oyster liquor. I...
Robert Paul Stephens cold case comes to end
God, it was hot. Baugh Road sat right on the edge of the Pickens and Anderson County line. Everything smelled burned and mosquitoes were swimming in the humid air. I was sweating into pair...
Much atwitter about nothing
Twitter is the Keanu Reeves of the internet. I imagine a big budget film in 1994. It has big guns, big names, the perfect script, and Oscar written all over it. Spielberg already has...
If you don’t want an answer…
Journalism is at its roots a practice in asking questions. The more questions you ask, the more answers you stand to get, the more you can do your job of informing the public. Sometimes-and...
Much ado about a monkey
Sean Delonas should be embarrassed. The New York Post editorial cartoonist has become a target of people like Rev. Al Sharpton and CNN’s Roland Martin for the cartoon you see below. Delonas and the...
The voice behind the Charity Worley 911 call
Linda Casey is in agony. She’s been that way for nearly a month and she can’t bear to listen to her own pain. She’s tried so many times, but has made it all the...
911 calls and the media
Updated to include comments from WSPA news director Charity Worley told her family she was going outside to warm up her car. It was 6:30 in the morning in the North Carolina mountains around...
Tom Corvin’s “Dear Dick”
I spent way too much time in the TV business, saw too much, and left in 2005 with too little of my soul. I’ve written some here about it, but probably not enough. A...