Jeff’s Dark and Early Blog

When you’ve done field reporting as long as I have, you find yourself shocked by very little.
I once covered a naked man in Joplin, Missouri who entered a convenience store, ate a bunch of canned tuna and then laid down in the middle of the highway.
So when I got the assignment to pay a visit to a family who had a large oak tree in their bedroom, I wasn’t overly alarmed. I had, after all, seen this before.
What I and we as reporters sometimes forget, however, is that for the people involved in these situations, this IS the first time.
I can only assume that man had never laid nude in a highway before and there was no doubt in my mind this morning that trees were not regular visitors in the home of this particular family.
My job is to tell their story. Not just the facts, but the human side as well. I hope I never forget this valuable lesson of journalism.