The Story Under the Story

By Gordon Hopkins It is a weird thing to write for a small town newspaper. The dynamic is not the same as writing for the New York Times or Washington Post. I'm not writing about people I only know about from crime scene photos or news stories or press releases. I'm writing about people I know. It can be a little awkward having a conversation, I mean a normal conversation and not an interview, with someone that I've written about. Or will be writing about. Do you remember how it felt when you were a kid and you would see your teacher outside of class, out in the real world, doing real world things and not just teaching? I feel a bit like that whenever I run into the judge at the store or spot one of the county commissioners buying a sandwich.Somehow, I don't think Woodward or Bernstein ever worried about running into President Nixon while at the laundromat or having lunch at the local burger joint.It is hard when news happens in your own neighborhood, to your own neighbors. A couple years ago I had to write about a house fire. The photos of that fire, which decimated the building, I took from my front porch. And, sometimes, news happens even closer.There are certain rules a newspaper journalist has to follow. They can be hard to follow when you know so many of the people and places you write about. One of those rules is, you have to reveal your connection to a story. Ideally, if you as a journalist have a significant connection to a story, you shouldn't be writing the story at all. Give it to another reporter. Of course, that's not always possible. At the very least, you have to reveal if you are part of the story.So, here we go. You may have noticed on the front page that a couple of telephone poles were knocked over in the fierce winds a few days ago. One of those poles nearly landed on the roof of a house.A brand new roof that I just finished paying for.City workers came by in the dark, in the frigid cold, in the biting snow, in the wind blowing up to 70 miles per hour, to keep that pole from destroying my roof, or worse. If it had fallen, it would have come crashing into my bedroom. One of the city's machines, an enormous, claw-like contraption, was tied up for two days, holding that telephone pole off of my house until the pole could be removed and replaced.So, I would like to thank the city for saving my roof. I'm sure my insurance company would like to thank you as well, given they already shelled out $20 grand and probably didn't relish having to fix my roof again.

Rod Warford

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