Breaking the story

Breaking the story

Today, I’m proud to report, I was part of breaking a story that appeared first on NewsChannel 9 (WSYR). I received a call from a resident of the Town of Fenner, NY, who said that overnight he heard a loud “crack of thunder” and awoke to see a 260+ foot wind turbine collapsed in the field across the street.

Working with NC9’s Keith Kobland, we confirmed that the turbine had indeed fallen and we broke the story online and in the 8:56 a.m. cut-in (to GMA). At that time we had only our “tower cam” and some file footage, but the lack of visual confirmation would soon be rectified.

We rushed in our photographer and sent him with Keith out to find this wind farm. Anticipating the following that this story could get, I also equipped them with a flip-camera to produce a web-specific video.

Using smart phones I networked with the team and was able to post their photos and updates to the web in near-real time. The story had gathered about 5000 views in about 5 hours, and I promoted it via Twitter.

When the team returned, we immediately uploaded the look-live clip from the flip-cam to our website and to Facebook.

Our saturation proved beneficial when a viewer, independently, called in to offer aerial photos of the fallen turbine taken from his plane. He had seen our coverage and flown over the site to get photos. In this case, breaking a story led to our obtaining (what appears to be) exclusive content.

In all, I’d say it was a successful day today. It is exciting when things work as they are supposed to.

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