Reporting death

The Iraq memorial from Basra

I’m never a huge fan of writing stories about death, but yet at the same time I’m intrigued by them.

I’ve written several in my short journalism career and it’s never been easy to do, but I don’t shy away from them either.

My first story was about two students murdered from my University. It was an odd story, because like most murders there wasn’t much information about it. And as a reporter for a college newspaper it was difficult to get local authorities to give me much information. But I was out to get every ounce I could and probably annoyed some people along the way.

The second story was about the first soldier from Belton killed in Iraq.

I also wrote a brief story about a soldier who named Belton as home, but lived in Kentucky with his family at the time of his death.

Today I discovered a former Harker Heights resident and Fort Hood soldier was killed in a plane crash Saturday.

I debated on telling the story. It ran on the AP wire, but neither of the local papers apparently noticed or cared to run it.

But I felt differently. Here is a man who served his country and likely died of a mechanical failure in his plane.

I was sure he had some sort of ties to Harker Heights and I’m sure people would appreciate knowing. So I write…

Former Heights resident killed in Georgia plane accident
Jonathan Blundell
Editor

Former Harker Heights resident and Fort Hood officer, Col. William Powell (Ret. US Army) was killed Saturday afternoon at approximately 3:39, when his single-engine, Beechcraft 35 Bonanza went down in a field outside Trinity, Ala.

Powell was killed on impact, while the passenger on-board was seriously injured and rushed to Huntsville Hospital by helicopter.

According to witnesses, the plan was coasting at a low altitude and no engine noise was heard shortly before the accident.

“You could tell something was wrong,” witness Danny Moore of Prattville, Al told The Decatur Daily News. “The plane rolled over and went nose down, tail up. It went straight to the ground.”

Powell’s wife, Patricia, who lived with Powell in Harker Heights between 1990 and 1992, while Powell was stationed at Fort Hood, said she wasn’t sure where William may have been headed, but assumed he was taking the plane for a test flight.

“Each year he takes the plane to Decatur for its annual inspection,” Patricia said. “When he went to pick it up earlier in the week, they had found something wrong with it and he waited till Saturday morning to pick up the plane. I believe something went wrong mechanically during the test flight and that caused the accident.”

Patricia did not know the passenger, but said she was sure he was a mechanic who may have worked on the plane.

Patricia also said she believed William found something wrong after take off and turned it around to head back to the airport.

According to initial reports by the Federal Aviation Administration, the plan crashed shortly after takeoff but no cause of the accident has been released.

Butch Wilson, an air safety investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board told The Decatur Daily News that the plan was still in good condition after the crash.

“The cockpit and engine area are crushed. But there was no fire and it didn’t hit any trees coming in.”

Wilson was unaware of any flight plan and also noted that the plane’s fule tanks were empty.

Investigation into the crash by the FAA and NTSB could take six months before a final report is complete.

The accident was one of eight fatal airplane related accidents in the U.S. over the weekend, including one accident Sunday in Houston.

—

I’m waiting to hear more from the NTSB and FAA hopefully, but the little information I pulled off the web is likely all I’ll get.

I also hope I can find Powell’s obit to give more of the human side of the tragedy.

What do you think? Should newspapers report death and accidents? Should local papers who normally focus on happy chearful tea parties give the same coverage to death and accidents? What do you think makes news and who should decide?

Flickr posts

I’ve posted some new photos on my Flickr Stream
I just realized, after I deleated a number of photos, that I’m limited by how much I upload each month, not how much I have saved on their system. So I guess I can’t upload again until next month, or I pay $24 a year for an upgraded membership.
Darn.
Well anyways, there’s a few more CWF pictures from Oak Cliff there, and a few less pictures of everything else.

It’s 1 a.m…..

It’s 1 a.m. I pulled into my driveway after a rushed trip to Dallas at midnight.
And I’m still up. Not totally sure why, but I did catch up on all my blog reading – after a week and a half of ignoring most of them – and I’m about .032-percent smarter. Or is that my blood alchohol level? Just kidding mom.
So reading is done. Off to bed time.
See you on the flip side.

Peter Jennings is dead

As reported by AP and ABC News and countless other news organizations, Peter Jennings died Sunday night at his home in New York City.
He was 67.
I’ve always been a fan of Jennings. He’s been my favorite anchor of the three major networks for a long time. He always had a way about him that didn’t seem to politicized the news. He lived a full life in 67 years and will be missed from our television screens.
In announcing Jennings’ death to his ABC colleagues, News President David Westin wrote:

For four decades, Peter has been our colleague, our friend, and our leader in so many ways. None of us will be the same without him.
As you all know, Peter learned only this spring that the health problem he’d been struggling with was lung cancer. With Kayce, he moved straight into an aggressive chemotherapy treatment. He knew that it was an uphill struggle. But he faced it with realism, courage, and a firm hope that he would be one of the fortunate ones. In the end, he was not.
We will have many opportunities in the coming hours and days to remember Peter for all that he meant to us all. It cannot be overstated or captured in words alone. But for the moment, the finest tribute we can give is to continue to do the work he loved so much and inspired us to do.

On Dec. 31, 1999, Jennings anchored ABC’s Peabody-award winning coverage of Millennium Eve, “ABC 2000.” Some 175 million Americans watched the telecast, making it the biggest live global television event ever. “The day belonged to ABC News,” wrote The Washington Post, “…with Peter Jennings doing a nearly superhuman job of anchoring.” Jennings was the only anchor to appear live for 25 consecutive hours.
Jennings also led ABC’s coverage of the Sept. 11 attacks and America’s subsequent war on terrorism. He anchored more than 60 hours that week during the network’s longest continuous period of news coverage, and was widely praised for providing a reassuring voice during the time of crisis. TV Guide called him “the center of gravity,” while the Washington Post wrote, “Jennings, in his shirt sleeves, did a Herculean job of coverage.” The coverage earned ABC News Peabody and duPont awards.
He did everything after dropping out of high school as a sophomore.
As a reporter, Jennings had reported from the front lines of many of the past half-century’s most significant events, including:

  • The conflict in Vietnam, which he was one of the first reporters to visit in the 1960s.
  • The construction of the Berlin Wall that same decade and its destruction in the 1990s.
  • The civil rights movement in the southern United States during the 1960s.
  • The struggle against apartheid in South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s.
  • The flowering of the Solidarity movement in Poland.
  • The repression of communism and its demise in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, including Hungary, Czechoslovakia, East Germany and Romania.
    “I’m fascinatedd by everything, there’s just too much going on in too many places and I don’t dare miss it,” Jennings’ said as he began his 40-year career.
    ABC News has posted a tribute/news video on Jennings’ career. Be sure you see it.