Tornado Warning

As a child growing up in west Texas I remember well the wail of the tornado sirens. I remember at James Bowie Elementary School in San Angelo, there was an underground storm shelter, its dust covered door easily accessible from the playground. I can recall, face in knees and hands behind head, as we would line the hallways of John Glenn Junior High anytime the sirens roared to life. We knew what to do. We had practiced and practiced, not in the off chance a tornado would hit, but for when one did. My mother was the director of a child care center then, The Sandcastle. We had drills there, too. She made sure we all, from the little ones in the baby room to the pre-teens hanging out after school, knew what to do when the weather turned nasty. And it turned nasty quickly and often. The thing about Texas and Oklahoma and Kansas and other states in the middle of our country is that they are unbelievably flat. Just earth below and sky above for miles. You feel like you can see forever. That topography makes any storm, but especially the most powerful and unpredictable of the storms, the tornado, seem to go on forever, too. It churns along, strengthening and weakening, disappearing into the clouds for a merciful second before dropping down in a thunderous funnel. It makes a noise like nothing else, save the cliched freight train. You can hear it chug, chug, chugging as if along a track gaining speed, whistling, blowing, devouring until its on top of you or your home or your school and then it all explodes. The misconception is that a tornado sort of breaks things apart. It doesn’t, it sucks them into its force and spits them out, shattering them. There is no other weather related phenomenon more destructive. Or more fickle. You’ve seen the aftermath, one house destroyed, another right next door, untouched. Cars in the parking lot of a bowling alley will be tossed around but a complete set of pins will remain upright in an alley. We have incredible, advanced radar that can detect when the atmosphere is ripe for a tornado. We have trustworthy meteorologists who know what elements must come together to create these beasts. We have an entire national weather service dedicated to tracking storms and warning us of their arrival. They are the ones who tell the ones who sound the sirens that warn the ones it’s time to get down against the wall in the hallway at school or underground in the shelter, quickly, quietly, so this monster can pass and we can emerge, stunned, dirty, but alive.

May God bless the people of Moore, Oklahoma.

True Crime

I have been a long time fan of true crime books, crime novels, in general really. I am fascinated by the subject and what makes people commit crimes. Interviewing Ann Rule, true crime author extraordinaire, was a highlight in my career. I am not squeamish. I have seen things at crime scenes that would turn most people green. I have seen video of the worst of human nature. I’m not afraid of much, other than the occasional large spider. I’m cautious but not a worrywart. Alert but not paranoid. I love scary movies. Gory movies, mysteries, thrillers, creepy flicks. I can watch alone in a dark room and go right to sleep without a care. My point is, it takes a lot to freak me out. The story out of Cincinatti, Ohio that broke May 6th of the three women held captive in a house by Ariel Castro for over ten years scares me to death. The thought of another human being who is sadistic enough to kidnap women, restrain them with chains and torture and rape them for years is horrifying. The rescue of these women dominated the news here and across the country, as it well should have. It reignited hope that other missing children could be alive and eventually come home to their heartbroken families. It made an instant celebrity of the man next door who helped kick in the front door of that house of horrors and free Amanda Berry, her six year old daughter born in captivity, Gina DeJesus, and Michelle Knight. I cannot imagine what these women have endured. I do not want to. The abuse, fear, terror, pain, and hopelessness they must have felt over the last ten years is incomprehensible. The stories that have come from the house are among the most gruesome I’ve heard in my 20 plus years in news and 30 plus years of reading crime novels. I’m not certain death wouldn’t have been preferable. In the days that have followed their discovery, we’ve heard from first responders who couldn’t believe the women, whose names they’d heard every time the anniversary of their disappearance rolled around, were alive, from family of Castro, who can’t believe they are related to someone who is capable of this, and from the opportunistic, who with perfect hindsight, feel as if signs were overlooked and tips ignored, that would have led police to these women sooner. Who we haven’t heard much from, however, are the families of Berry, DeJesus, and especially Knight. Yes, there has been some, but the lack of it concerns me. Not because we are owed anything by the families. They have every right to demand and expect privacy. I fear we haven’t heard from them because they do not exist, or if they do, they just do not care anymore. By all accounts these girls, when they disappeared, were not angels. There are reports of drug use, premature sexual relationships, a distance from their families. But my god, who among us hasn’t broken a rule, done the wrong thing, made a bad choice? To think these girls became women under the heavy hand of a monster is sickening. And that now that they’ve seen the light of day for the first time in a decade, taken a breath of sweet freedom, eaten, bathed, slept – all of the things we take for granted – that there is no one to support them, hold them, tell them it will take time, a long time, but that everything will be okay and they are safe now – may be the most sickening part of all.

 

A Mom, no matter the name

Lennie LaVeda Rice Nevill

Lennie Lucille Nevill Shults Owens

Nancy Lynn Shults Lace Brinson Reeves

Stephany Lace Brinson Fisher

Lucy Caroline Fisher

So proud to be daughter, granddaughter, and great-granddaughter to such smart, strong women and mother to my sweet baby Lulu

Happy Mother’s Day

To my other Mother

She is so many things I am not. Yet, my husband, her son, says we are very much alike. She believes and feels strongly about ideas which I do not. Yet, we agree on most everything. She is what you think of when you think of a mother. She is an excellent cook, making signature dishes for 14 people, whipping up meals with ‘whatever’s in the kitchen’, preparing special things just for me, her finicky daughter-in-law. She sews and knits and crochets – fixing dance costumes, busted seams, creating baby blankets. She babysits her granddaughters, one of whom is special needs, the other three which are even more difficult – teenagers. She would give you her last penny if she thought it would help. She is always respectful of others, almost to a fault, being careful to never step on anyone’s toes. Her feelings are big and she wears them on her sleeve proudly. Conversations about unpleasantness are conducted in almost a whisper. Tears are shed in joy more often than in sadness. She is a devoted wife to her husband of 45 years, a loving sister to her only sibling, world traveler, devout Catholic, loyal friend to many, nurturer to many more through her years of work as a nurse and now her work as a hospice volunteer. She is quick to hug you and laugh with you and will drop everything if you tell her you need her. Selflessness personified. And she remembers. My favorite things, the stores I frequent, the perfume I wear, the wine I drink, even my favorite color which she included in a wedding shower she threw for me 20 years ago. I don’t know who she imagined her son would marry. If she could have known it would be a woman who can’t cook or crochet, who doesn’t go to church often, and who would move her son and granddaughter across the country. But I want her to know that, as a mother myself, I am certain she dreamed of her son being happy, because it’s what we all wish for our children. And that I work everyday to make him happy, to let him know I love him and the life we have.

Happy Mother’s Day and Happy Birthday to my dear mother-in-law. Thank you for giving me the love of my life.

Kris Fisher with her grandbabies, Courtney, Lucy, Jordyn, & Syrah

The Culture of Rape

A girl drinks too much at a party, passes out, and awakes to a blurry recollection of the night’s events. It’s only after she sees pictures and comments online that she realizes she was sexually assaulted at that party. The boys shown in the pictures holding her hands and feet while her body hangs limply between them, star high school football players. The same ones who would later brag about what they’d done to her while she was out cold. This happened in Steubenville, Ohio last summer. The boys, 16 and 17, have since been convicted of rape. But the culture of blaming the girl continues. She shouldn’t have gotten so drunk. She was flirting with them. She asked for it by behaving a certain way. The comments made after pictures of that night surfaced ranged from “She looks like a dead body!” to “Some people deserved to be peed on.” The perception was and is that somehow she deserves what happened to her. She deserved to be raped.

This week, 4 Morehouse college student athletes were charged with two rapes. The case is still under investigation but we’re hearing that in one instance, witnesses say the young man held the young woman down and raped her as she screamed “No!” No is what we are taught to say. No is what some women who’ve been raped say is the only word they can form in that horrifying moment. No should suffice. But sadly, it does not.

Rapes are most often committed by a man the woman knows. Someone she may trust, feel comfortable around. Just because it’s not a strange man jumping from behind a bush doesn’t make it less violent, less traumatizing, less of a crime. For their part, young men, especially in groups, may feel pressure to have sex, act ‘tough’, or brag about mistreating a woman. Our culture is such that men are taught at a fairly young age that women are here for them, for their amusement and enjoyment, to do with as they please. That is a culture a group here in Atlanta is working to change by focusing on the group that does the mistreating – men. In an exclusive story tonight, I show you the work this group is doing, the lives and relationships it is trasnsforming, and the cultural norms it is shattering, one man at a time.

Here’s a link to the story.

http://www.cbsatlanta.com/story/22134430/cbs-atlanta-news-exclusive-teaching-men-not-to-rape

Teenagers

It’s not easy. One minute they want you to baby them, the next they want you to in no uncertain terms, *%#! OFF! They need you and they don’t. They want you and then they don’t. They ask for money, a ride, a new phone, a sleepover, more, and for a hug, you to read to them, advice, less. You still do all the same things but now your words and actions are annoying and embarassing. You become inevitably, unnecessary. Or so it would seem. The instinct is to pull away. Give them space and everything they ask for to fill it. To continue to make beds and lunches all the while disappearing when a friend calls or a TV show is on. The pull is so great some days to ignore them right back and dismiss their moods. But that’s the mistake, I think. I have never been more necessary than now. While their brains work to catch up with their bodies, they are still children. Not yet capable of making fully informed decisions, not yet ready to navigate alone the black hole of the internet, not yet emotionally mature enough to tell bully from buddy, desire from danger. If I ever had a job as a parent, it is at this moment in her life. That when every fiber of my being is saying walk away, is when I should step right into it. For 13 years I have wiped and driven and watched and cried and dressed and doctored and cleaned and ached and fed and spoiled and thought I would burst with pride. Now that you are capable of most of these yourself, means I am free to be the one thing you need most – not a friend, although I am – but, a guide. And I promise my love, I will not steer you wrong. I know heartache and mean girlfriends. I’ve lost games and flunked tests. There were bad skin days and worse makeup days. I crashed my Mom’s car. I lied. I snuck out. I had to start my high school years in a brand new city across the country from where I grew up, with a funny accent, no friends, and a misplaced desire to be a dancer. So trust me when I say I understand what you’re going through. With apologies to Robert Frost, there are two roads diverging in this wood – one where she goes it alone because I didn’t want to be a bother or one less traveled by, where I show her the way as only the person who knows her best and loves her most can.

And I am certain that will make all the difference.

BREAKING NEWS….

Since the advent of cable TV, the internet, and smart phones, most Americans are well versed and frankly, probably experts, in what constitutes breaking news. One could argue that since we so often default to the title of ‘breaking news’ that the label has become diluted and fails to raise the appropriate amount of alarm anymore. When a cruise ship limping into port without power becomes breaking news, then that argument is solidified. To me, breaking news is best described as others have referred to art or even pornography. “I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it.” Since I entered broadcasting in 1992, I’ve covered stories that fit firmly into the breaking news mold, and many others that did not. On the more ridiculous side, I once talked for almost an hour on live TV, interrupting people’s favorite soap operas mind you, about a zebra that had broken free from its pen outside Phillips Arena where it was to perform later as part of the Ringling Brothers Circus. Now, I’m not saying video of a zebra hoofing it through downtown Atlanta is not news nor and I’m saying it’s not on some level entertaining and yes, even a little sad, but it most certainly did not warrant an hour of breathless coverage that included at one point me suggesting that the zebra must be okay because its tail was wagging. (Look, you talk about this for 60 minutes with no breaks and no information..) There have been similar breaking news cut ins about a buffalo that had fallen off a truck on I-85 and a deer stuck in a metal fence or a man who tripped and fell down his own well or the poor soul crushed by an industrial sized oven while unloading it from a truck. Odd, titillating, heart-wrenching, macabre. Not the true definition however of breaking news. More along the lines of happening right now. There are of course the stories deemed breaking news that you knew were coming, just not when. Verdicts, Sports retirements, Implosions, even the crippled cruise ship. The information can be and is often important but you’ve had time to prepare. There is a typical story arc to these reports- beginning, middle, and now, the end. That end can be momentous, mind you, think the OJ Simpson verdict, but we knew it was coming. True breaking news in my opinion is what happened yesterday at the Boston marathon. What happened in Oklahoma City in ’95. Tornadoes. September 11th. Even Gwinnett County firefighters taken hostage responding to a medical emergency. Not knowing the whys and whos, just the whats and whens. Facts changing, visceral reactions, unedited video. A tornado touches down in downtown Atlanta during a championship SEC basketball game on a warm Friday night sucking furniture out of the Westin hotel and despositing it in the middle of Marietta Street, destroying a building of loft apartments filled with people, flooding the first floor of the Georgia World Congress Center, and proving in a most powerful way forecasts are sometimes wrong. Longest I’ve ever continuously covered breaking news. A woman drives her Mazda into a lake in rural South Carolina with her two young sons still strapped in their car seats, jumping out at the last minute to weave a tale of being carjacked, only to confess to drowning them so a man who didn’t want children would love her. Most difficult breaking news I’ve ever covered.  And every time some nut shoots up a school, a movie theater, bombs a federal building or a marathon, flies planes into skyscrapers, threatens, kills, and terrorizes us. Breaking news that reignites my passion for informing and helping people while infuriating me.

It is these moments where I am at my best and my worst. It is a near impossible task when you earn your living with words, and there are none.

Championship coverage

Congratulations Louisville! I don’t think I had time to watch a single frame of you playing basketball but I’m happy for you. What I can say is that you have tremendous support from your fans. And it’s quite possible I met all of them over the last five days. As the host network for the NCAA Final Four and Championship game, we planned and yes, executed outstanding coverage of not only the games but of the events surrounding these games. The Georgia World Congress Center was transformed into what was called “Bracket Town” and filled with games, food, sport courts, auctions, cars, bungee jumpers, a full basketball court for the Harlem Globetrotters, stores filled with NCAA stuff, a bar, and a full television studio and control room, that last one courtesy of CBS Atlanta. Better Mornings Atlanta co-host Brandon Rudat and I broadcast the 4, 5, and 6:00 newscasts from said Bracket Town Thursday, Friday, and Monday. We interviewed coaches, players past and present, sports analysts, and our own reporters. Personal favorite was talking to members of the 1975-76 Indiana Hoosiers under coach Bobby Knight. These men were sooooo tall. We looked like children next to them! They were a pleasure to interview. When my hosting duties were over at 6:30 I would take a seat at our great interactive promotional area where viewers and basketball fans could come by to talk, get an autograph or picture, or take a turn on our portable weather wall delivering tomorrow’s forecast. We have such loyal and kind viewers. So many people consider me part of their families and I’m touched when they bring their children to meet me or have me sign a picture for their grandmother or just want to say thank you. It made the long days and nights meaningful and reminded me of why I love this business.

Now, as you may know, the city has approved the funding for a new Falcons stadium to be built, I believe by 2016, so we can, as the Mayor says, attract larger sporting events. I don’t know how much larger it gets than what I just saw. Hundreds of thousands of peope were here. Hotels, full. Restaurants and bars, packed. MARTA bursting with bodies. Police had to shut down Centennial Olympic Park Sunday because it was full! A park. Full. And yet, no one was killed or hurt, no business or person was robbed. No fights. No fires started in celebration. Just thousands and thousands of your closest friends watching ball, listening to music, and enjoying a glorious springtime in the South. I’m proud of you Atlanta. Okay, Mayor Reed, I agree we can handle it, bring on the Super Bowl!

On set in Bracket Town with Brandon

 

Signing pictures for viewers

 

Talking sports with Chris Dimino from 790 The Zone

 

Why does everything here make me feel so short??!

Striking a pose on the final day of coverage with our lead reporter Jennifer Mayerle

Final thoughts on the Final Four

The Final Four is upon us here in Atlanta. Don’t care about college basketball you say? Don’t have any interest in braving the cars and the crowds downtown to visit “Bracket Town” or watch the free concerts in Centennial Olympic Park? Didn’t fill out a bracket this year? Or the one you did fill out is now busted? Doesn’t matter. This thing is massive, it’s happening, and its here. The teams landed tonight. The streets around the World Congress Center are closed. The Georgia Dome has a beautiful hardwood floor. Even the kid who snapped his leg (brutal, by the way) during last weekend’s game is here with his family and ready to cheer on his teammates.  For not being a sports anchor, I have anchored a lot of sports coverage in my time. I did shows from what was then called ‘Hoop City’ when the Final Four was here in ’07. I was live from Turner Field for Braves opening day last spring. I hosted a week long special from the Atlanta Athletic Club for the 2011 PGA Tournament. Teams coming to town, teams leaving for another city. Athletes screwing up and doing good and getting hurt and retiring and winning championships and dying. You saw how invested I was in the Falcons last season. I almost cried when they lost the playoff game to San Francisco. Sports invariably is a big part of covering the news.  We are a nation of sports fans. So, as I pour over information about these ball clubs, as I get my credentials and crisp new station shirts, as I slip on jeans instead of a dress, I can’t help but get excited not only for these kids who have made it the ultimate match up of their college basketball careers but for the opportunity once again to be part of something big, To show and tell the people of Atlanta and our countless visitors this weekend how a basketball game can be so much more .. something to cheer for, holler at, celebrate. Something that, college basketball fan or not, will bring Atlantans together. If that’s not news fit for this news anchor, I don’t know what is.  

March Madness

Every year I swear I will take time off during the early rounds of the NCAA basketball tournament. And every year I don’t and I sit here at midnight quietly wishing the Earth would open up and swallow my tired self. I had time off last week and a few days this week in fact but for some reason my brain won’t tell my hand to fill out a vacation request that includes these late nights. So, I wait. For years, I filled out a bracket and in fact, have organized the office pool (if bosses are reading, I did not, in fact, do this). I do half-heartedly root for Gonzaga because my hubby went to the Prep school and I’m from Spokane but really I just want the games to end so I can go home and sleep. The threat of overtime or the network switching to another game in progress is always imminent. The mere mention from Greg Gumbel that he and the team will be back with their analysis can send a studio and control room full of professional people into a whining fit of disgust. Seconds are not seconds in college hoops. They are loooooong minutes with fouls and free throws and commercials and highlights set to music. Look, I love that CBS plays host to the tourney, I love that it is extremely popular and therefore brings many people to their televisions and in turn, to our news. I most especially love the fact that the Final Four and Championship game are in Atlanta this year and we have a kick ass set at “Bracket Town” at the Georgia World Congress Center. That is wonderful for us as a city and as a station. Plus, it’s fun. We hosted in 2007 and had a ball. But to steal a line from “Seinfeld” – daytime Stephany is almost always ticked at nighttime Stephany for her poor sleep habits. She never learns.

Perhaps cardboard Stephany can fill in.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By the way, real and cardboard Steph and Markina will be at Bracket Town at the GWCC April 5-8 if you want a pic with us.