I spent my day riding around the triangle with Amanda Lamb, a reporter at WRAL, and Chad Flowers, her photographer. We started off the day at the Justice Center in Downtown. Amanda said that she started everyday there looking at all the arrest & search
warrants from the last day or so. She does this to see if any interesting cases come up that they might want to cover, or to see if any new leads on cases they are already working on. Mostly they look for cases involving people who would be a danger to the general public. Around the Justice Center the topic of interest seemed to be the arrest of two women who broke out into a fight the day before. Most of the reporters we spoke to were annoyed by the story because TVZ, or ABC11, was making a big deal about it because they had someone on the scene yesterday who was able to get video of the incident. I also got a brief tour of the building, I was told that things were pretty slow today as not much was going on. The highlight of the trip seemed to be the spotting of two women dressed in a Super Girl outfit and carrying a Piglet backpack.

After our visit to the Justice Center, it was time to start working on the story for the news today. After some debate, it was decided that we would follow up on a lead about a Good Samaritan from a motorcycle accident that occurred last night. It sounded much more promising than the story the station originally wanted to cover about a gym closing. Chad was a little worried about the direction of the story due to the fact that the driver of the motorcycle who ended up dying was the one who was at fault during the accident. So instead of covering the crash itself, it was decided to frame the story around what our Good Samaritan’s experience was.

Once Amanda was able to contact her we decided on a meeting spot out in North Cary. After a quick spot of lunch we met up with the young woman for an interview. She was very cooperative and I am very moved by her story. She got to the scene of the accident, she thought, very soon after it happened. She pulled over to the side of the road and made her way to the driver of the motorcycle. She explained that he was in very bad shape, covered in blood, as well as not breathing and no pulse. She began to give him CPR. She didn’t stop until the police and EMTs arrived a few minutes later. She noted that she was the only one who was trying to help the young man. An older gentleman had come over to her but exclaimed that he didn’t know what to do, while all the other people either just watched from afar or didn’t stop at all. She was very vocal about her opinions on that matter.

Once the interview was over we headed back to the WRAL studio. There the footage from the accident the night before and the interview from today were going to be edited together. While Amanda was writing the script for her story I sat in a planning meeting for the news shows that evening. After that, I sat with the women at the news desk. They are the people who monitor all the police radios and other news sources to determine if anything news worthy is happening. If there is something interesting happening they will dispatch teams of reporter to the scene.

Once Amanda was done with the script, I went with her and Chad to film the bridge in the
control room and then to the recording studios to record the voice over for the package. Then I sat with Chad while he edited all the pieces of the puzzle together. Then the story was done and all ready to be aired on the 5 o’clock news. I left before they aired it on television but I got home in time to watch it.

Here is a link to the story on the WRAL website: http://www.wral.com/good-samaritan-stopped-to-help-man-after-crash-near-rolesville/15730542/

-CJ