Breaking the News and Following it Up

Just finished up a six day work week. I spent three of those days covering a drowning. Here's a day by day breakdown.

Sunday: We first learned that someone may be in the water Sunday evening. I had just wrapped up the shoot for a story I was working on when I got a call from our producer. It was one of those situations where we didn't have much info so I quickly headed to the site to figure out what was going on. Ended up turning a package about the basics - someone is in the water, rescue turned into recovery, calling off recovery for tonight because it's too dangerous.

Monday: I got to the station early to follow up with the sargent I spoke with on Sunday. Their plan was debrief at 9 and head out to the water at 10. I met them at the site as they continued their recovery effort. It really helped that I was there the day before, actually we were the only media there on Sunday. I knew who to talk to and where to go. I also had another advantage, the victim's friends had seen me there too. Understandably, they didn't want to talk, or at least do a formal interview. Luckily, they were able to share their story with me and let me get sound off the shot gun mic. Divers located the body by mid-afternoon. My story for the day was reaction from friends, the same friends that were swimming when their friend went under and didn't come back up.

Tuesday: The day after they found the body there were still more questions. The teen who drowned was swimming in an area called Cedar Lake or some simply called it the old gravel pit. I wanted to check on the number of drownings, the history of the lake and if anyone should swim there in the first place. The story I ended up with was a little different. I interviewed the sheriff's department for the basics and I also set up an interview with the drain commissioner because he knew a lot about the area. Seems straightforward until the sheriff's deparment said the area was dangerous, then the drain commissioner said people should swim there. If conflict makes a good story I would say this piece had it.