Opinion : The Anatomy of a Story

Over the years, it never ceases to amaze me.

I've married a guy that has a memory unlike mine.

Certain dates will pop up on the calendar and I'll hear..."Do you know what today is? 10 years ago my grandpa's shed burned down." Of course, my birthday comes up, Valentine's day...well you guessed it, it's like it doesn't happen every year.

It's kind of funny. If we travel to certain towns for a night out, people will smile and say hello to Dean, and they'll have this conversation about how things are going and USUALLY after the person leaves I'll just look at him and he explains who the person is and what they do..

He seems to have this huge catalog of names he has in his head and he knows where everyone is, what they are doing, what they used to do and other tidbits of information about them.

It's really great in the reporting line of work to know all these connections. A few weeks ago I needed to know who to contact about an event and I knew if I asked, he'd know...sure enough.

Sometimes stories just fall into our lap, like the one this weekend about our soldiers. That's fun.

When we first heard that they were going to interrupt broadcasting for a message from President Obama, Dean pops in the room and says, "He's gonna say they killed Bin Laden..." at that point they hadn't announced it.

A few minutes later they did just that. I asked Dean, "Did you see that on the internet?" He said, "No, I'm just guessing."

That's when I look at him and wonder if he's got an inside track to information that I haven't discovered yet.

In "real" life, he's not a detail sort of person.

I had told him about something that would be happening on 3 different occasions...did he know about it when the time rolled around? Of course not!" "You have to tell me when I'm listening" he always explains with a grin.

I've had experience with this before.

I've learned as a mother, when you want to make sure the kids are listening, make them stop, look them directly in the eyes and then relay the information, well, that seems to do the trick here.

Other times we will go someplace and I'll ask, "Did you notice the person with the green hair and purple polka dotted necktie?", and this would be greeted with a blank stare.

One time he came home from a game and said, "I noticed the bands the team was wearing, so I asked about them."

That's when I shake my head in amazement that he even noticed something so small and zeroed in on it.

But it's those things that trigger a conversation and usually result in a story.

Last night as news broke about Bin Laden, he remembered what he had heard about a unit in Afghanistan that has been getting hit pretty hard with casualties and wondered it's proximity to the excitement in the region. So of course he pulled up maps, had questions and here's where I come in.

See, I'm not really the research and report type, that's Dean's department.

Sometimes I think he gets so deep into a story he hits overload and all he needs is one or two things to nail down a story. That's when I suggest one of two things to solve his dilema.

Google or Facebook.

Google is pretty self explanatory.

Facebook has become the new phone book for internet research. He had some questions about his story, so I pointed out that he could send a message to someone on Facebook and probably get some answers really quickly.

Sure enough, he sent a message and within minutes our old-fashioned land line phone rang with his answer.

Most of the time I am on the sidelines watching in amazement as this guy cranks these stories out, and I have no idea where he gets them.

But as he'll tell you, sometimes it's just dumb luck and other times a lot of digging and research.

So if you ever wonder where the story ideas come from, don't look at me, I haven't got a clue most of the time.

But I do believe that some folks are just born to do certain jobs and for Dean, reporting is his gift.

Me, well, I'm just the gal that answers the e-mail, posts what comes in off of that, chases minor leads, creates the ads, takes care of the billing, does the miscellaneous paperwork that comes up, and schedules the calendar then sends the reporter on his way, and any other odds and ends jobs that come up.

Yeah, that stuff I know is important to the website, but I sometimes think my most important contribution is to look Dean in the eye and utter those little words, "Google and Facebook, dear."