My Sunday column

A day to remember

I don’t know if I could work with me, but I am lucky to have a group of people at The Daily Citizen who somehow can.
That fact was made abundantly clear on Friday, as the newsroom of The Daily Citizen moved into high gear to cover the bombing of the McCamy, Phillips, Tuggle and Fordham Law Firm.
The horrific event occurred less than two blocks from out office — chilling in a way but from a practical standpoint a great break.
I was at home when the explosion happened. I was at work less than 45 minutes later and didn’t leave for the next 12 hours.
It was a grueling day.
Covering the news for a living is a strange job at times, Events which startle, frighten and sometimes sicken a journalist, often become the stories by which we measure our worth.
Old newspapermen sitting around sipping bourbon don’t brag about city council meetings or art festivals they covered. They swap tales about the colossal foulups, disasters and tragedies they worked.
I’ve had those experiences.
Friday was another.
Two of my reporters — Mark Millican and Kim Sloan — were on the scene within minutes of the explosion. We chased down both of our photographers — Matt Hamilton and Misty Watson, who came in on her off day — and sent them as well.
As more staffers arrived, we met quickly — the equivalent of a backyard quarterback scratching out some football plays on a napkin. More detailed planning came later, but early on we just wanted to gather as much information as possible.
It paid off.
Reporters quickly began relaying information back to the office — praise the cell phone — and that opened up new areas to look into.
Newsroom clerk Lara Hayes monitored the police radio, kept an eye on the TV and made and answered phone calls.
Reporter Jamie Jones joined Millican and Sloan on Crawford Street and reporter Charles Oliver took off to dig up background on the bombing suspect.
Fortunately for me, news editor Victor Miller arrived in time to help organize the whole carnival.
My boss William Bronson immediately OK’d the idea of a separate six-page section to be devoted solely to the day’s dreadful events.
A stand-alone section made perfect sense, except I was the only person in the office trained to do page layout. Two of our regular news editors were unavailable and the sports staff was up to its ears in covering Friday night football.
So I started knocking out pages for the regular edition as quickly as possible, as the Sword of Damocles — the special section — dangled overhead.
Then, an epiphany.
A quick phone call and 30 minutes later Chris Stephens, a former staffer who still helps us with dalton magazine, walked in the door, ready to get to work.
Chris sat down and started pounding out pages for the special section.
During this process we pressed hard to provide information to the public as quickly as possible through our Web site, daltondailycitizen.com.
The site logged thousands of hits as word spread about the terrible events. Our regular Internet audience checked it out for information throughout the day, but we also saw thousand of “unique hits” — first-timers from all over the country looking in.
Another Chris, our tech man Chris McConkey, was also instrumental. Not only did he take some pictures at the scene, but he put a lot of photos up on the Web site.
Several statewide and national news organizations called and those interviews put us on the radar for lots of new people interested in the story.
At the end of the day, we got our regular paper done on time and the special section — thanks to Stephens and the rest of the staff — wrapped up earlier than expected.
It’s a good piece and I’m proud of it. I am even prouder of the hard work and tireless dedication this newspaper staff showed in putting it together.
No complaining.
No excuse making.
Everyone took on a task and went after it hard.
That’s the way it should be.
Now, if I could only find a glass of good bourbon.



Jimmy Espy is executive editor of The Daily Citizen. He blogs at Espysoutpost.blogspot.com. Stop by and sit a spell.