On the Menu for Today

First, I suggest you read Jeff's blog today. http://www.whnt.com/Global/Link.asp?L=152991

Jeff is being kind when he doesn't tell you what the story was or what station ran it. However, I will say this, the website it was stolen from was www.thesmokinggun.com

To me uncovering a story doesn't mean you ran across it on someone else's website. It also doesn't mean you got it from making a routine call to the police department. You also don't uncover something when a viewer calls you about a story. Uncovering a story means you actually put some effort into it yourself. You went and dug through files. Uncovering is when you get a tip and then you pound the pavement to see if there is anything to it. Not when it's handed your way on a silver platter.

Today we are going down to Gadsden. Former judge Roy Moore will be moving his Ten Commandments display to his home church. So we will be there to cover it. I wonder who else will be there? I assume some Birmingham stations will be there.

I talked about how the Fox News Alerts were getting on my nerves. Well, CNN does something that I don't like as well. The other day they had a graphic on the screen that said, "New Developments." Below that it said, "Police to Expand Search" Seeing as how I was just tuning in, what was that supposed to mean to me? They do that a lot. You will have no idea what's going on and the graphic doesn't help.

We are supposed to deal in information, not vagueness.

The Show Must Go On

We've all had days when you just aren't in a good mood. Yesterday was one of those days for me. Why? Well, it's really not important to share here. But it is kind of strange that even when we aren't in a good mood, us "TV Folks" have to go on the air and just do our jobs. The same can be said for when you don't feel good as well. People at home don't want to know your problems, they just want you to be you. So you go on. There's always tomorrow.

And what do you know, tomorrow is here.

Where Did My Mind Go?

I was going to write something here earlier in the day. I tried, but Blogger was down. So now that's it back up, I can't remember.

Today is a sports day. If you watched the six then you saw us come back from a commercial break with me unprepared. I normally come up after the little sports intro. There wasn't one tonight, but no one told me. So there I was kind of staring off into space.

We get most of our national sports video from CBS. They can be really hard to work with. Today I thought I wasn't going to have any Braves video. It was there on their list of things to send us, but they never would. Finally at 15 till 6 they sent it. They really make you worry sometimes.

Where Are You From?

I hope you enjoyed the pictures I posted yesterday. I was off work and decided to go out and take a few pictures around my house.

I'm working in Albertville today. Tomorrow and Thursday it's back to Huntsville.

I appreciate the comments people have left here on the blog. I'm curious as to where people are taking a look from. I know I've had some comments from people in Lousianna and Ohio. If you wouldn't mind, leave a comment and let me know where you're from.

Thanks for stopping by.

Picture 4 

Picture 3 

Picture 2

Picture one 

The Return of Jamey Tucker to 19

If you watched Sunday night at ten, then you saw Jamey Tucker. Jamey was at the station until 1997. He anchored and was also the first For Goodness Sake reporter.

So why was Jamey back you ask? Well Amy George, the current FGS reporter, has been on vacation this week. So there wasn't an FGS story. I was producing the show, so I thought why not pull one out that we've done in the past. We've got all the FGSs, hundreds of them, so why not use em instead of letting them sit back in archives oxidizing. (using them won't stop them from oxidizing, but you get the point)

I found one from November of 1993, soon after we began FGS. In the story, Jamey interviews atheist Dan Barker. The story was about if being good just to get into heaven is wrong, if the only reason you're good is because you want to go to heaven. Does that make sense? Anyway, it was a good story and we just billed it as a For Goodness Sake Classic. I thought it worked well.

I know Jamey sometimes reads my blog. So, thanks Jamey for helping me fill my show, and filling in for Amy. Too bad your contract with the station didn't include a deal for re-runs.

I Wonder Where You Work?

UPDATE: I don't want the message below to make you think I can't take some critiquing. If I'm saying "well" too much, then I need to stop. Although at the same time, I don't understand why you would just send an email to someone you don't know and say that.

By the way, I appreciate the comments folks have left.


I got this email from someone in reference to my anchoring at 10pm on Saturday night.

Your bio says you graduated from UAT in broadcast journalism. As such I would assume you had speech and on-air presentation training. Please review your presentation of 4/23, 10 pm, and count the number of times your started a news item with the word "Well." I don't think your instructors would approve of this very bad and unnecessary speech crutch.

Thanks for the advice. But I wonder why he didn't say where he works? I'd like to know, so I can email and tell him when he does a bad job.

One Down, One to Go

I anchored and produced the 6 and 10 tonight. I will do it again Sunday at 5 and 10. It's a little strange with all the things you have to keep up with. I produced the show, which means I wrote the show, I stacked the show (which means I decided where everything was going to go) and I had to time the show. Luckily our weekday 5pm producer Claire Aiello came in an hour before each show to look over everything and then watch over the show as it was actually going on air. She says I pretty much had it all under control, but a huge thanks to her.

Anchoring news is a lot different from anchoring sports. I have to keep up with camera changes, which you don't have to worry about during sports. I also have to run my own teleprompter using a foot pedal under the desk, which you don't have to do with sports. That desk wasn't made for people my size. There is no place for my legs to go under there.

That's Me, Trendsetter

Well I seem to have started something at the station. Now three other people have joined me in the world of blogging. Besides Dan and Chris, Jeff Butera has now joined the ranks.
You can catch him at http://livefromtheshoals.blogspot.com
As far as I know we are still the only station in Huntsville that has people doing blogs. I'm surprised one of the other guys hasn't started.

So I guess that's a total of four people who in the words of Steve Johnson, "must not have enough to do."

The Six O'Clock News Starts at Six

So what am I doing today? Am I reporting? No. Am I doing sports? No. I'm producing the 6pm show. I've got to anchor and produce this weekend, so I'm learning how to produce. Maybe all will go well.

Yesterday I went down to Grissom High School to shoot a baseball game. The game was supposed to start at 4. I got there about 5 'till. 4 came and went. At about 10 after, both teams started to kind of work their way out on to the field.

Most events we cover never start on time. This got me to thinking. What if we did our news like that. Imagine at 6pm, Jerry Hayes coming on and saying, "Some of our reporters are having some problems getting their stories together. So we're going to give them 10 more minutes. So just sit back, relax and we'll get started in just a little while."

Something tells me that won't happen.

Heart of Sand Mountain

Sorry, but I don't really have much for the blog today. I'm doing sports today, so I won't be in the Heart of Sand Mountain. That's Albertville by the way. No real inside information on my job to share. I want to be as upfront with you as possible about that. Although the consultants for my blog have told me I shouldn't say that.

They say that I should hide the fact I really don't have any new information. They say it should really read something like this.

I will keep "UNCOVERING" new information. I will keep "DIGGING" into this. So keep it tuned to Carson's blog for the latest information. You never know when in my day's work I might uncover something. Does my lunch count?

Do, Do, Do Lookin' Out My Backdoor 

The Alarm Clock Mystery

Yesterday we did a story about why people seem to be moving to DeKalb County. It gave us the chance to go up to Little River Falls. It's located at the head of Little River Canyon, which is a National Preserve. If you've never been there, you should go sometime. It's one of the most beautiful areas in the world. DeKalb County is very blessed with a lot of great scenery.

Today I'm doing sports. So just to clear it all up. I reported on Monday and Tuesday. I will do sports Wednesday and Thursday. Then it's back to reporting on Friday. Photographer Brad Hood is off on Friday, so that means I'll be one-man-banding.

Since I'm doing sports, that's means I'm working a nightside schedule. That means I work from 2 to 11. So, I could have slept in this morning. My body had other ideas. Why is that when I have to work days, if I don't set the alarm clock, I will sleep till 9. This morning I could sleep in, but I was wide awake at 6:30? I did go out and enjoy the cool weather from the back porch, which is the picture above. It's nice out there.

Stories That Don't Live Up to the Hype

Being in the TV Biz, one of my pet peeves is when a story is advertised as one thing, but is completely different.

Last night, another station did a story they said was about a cluster of sex offenders living in Albertville. That's what the story was adverstised as. They go to the story, and the subject of a sex offenders cluster was never mentioned, not even once. The story was actually about a young man who had been molested as a child. That's fine, but why not just say that's what the story is about?

That kind of thing just really annoys me.

Monday's Talking Points

Today we did another story about the Guntersville Mayor's Race. It's the story that will never end. James Townson is appealing. In a previous post I spelled his name wrong. Sorry about that.

The shooting that took place in Madison County is the big story. So my story, and rightly so, gets pumped down to a secondary story.

Speaking of that story, I thought we did the best job of covering it. I believe we were the first to break into programming. The first to actually bring you pictures. And I believe we were the only ones to actually cover the news conference live. One of the other stations was actually in the middle of their newscast and they didn't go to it live.

Another point: I'd like to thank those who seem to actually be reading my blog. Jamey Tucker, posted a comment. He used to work at Channel 19 in the 1990's. He has a blog as well.

That's it for now. Thanks for stopping by.

Chris is Forgiven

Chris changed his blog background. So I guess I forgive him. This was all in good fun of course. I don't want anyone who reads these posts to think that Chris and I are actually in a battle.

Chris Davis is a Copy Cat

Chris Davis now has a blog of his own. That's great, but couldn't you have picked a background that looked different from mine??????

Two of Me

On Friday, we had the chance to use special effects in our story. That's something you seldom get to do, and it seems this time was in vain anyway.

I did a story about how Marshall County has two courthouses. There are double services and double expenses. So the whole theme of the story was "double." I had an idea to stick with that theme by having two of me appear at the end of the story. Carson number one talked and Carson number two talked, all on the screen at the same time.

But it was like no one got it. People looked at it as if some mistake had been made. I know why. It's because most people don't pay attention to the story. So when two of me popped up at the end, they were caught off guard. It just seemed to fall flat.

Oh well, I guess that's what you get for trying to be creative.

A Rainbow

Yesterday as I drove home, it started to rain. Soon, it was raining and the sun was shining at the same time. So I started looking for the rainbow that I knew must be up there somewhere. As I was just crossing the river, there it was. It was the perfect rainbow too. It was a complete arch. One end appeared to land right in the middle of the river.

It was there for my entire trip home. I kept looking at my fellow drivers as they would pass by. I wondered if they even noticed. Most appeared to give it no attention. They were just staring straight ahead or talking on their cell phones. I thought that was kind of sad. A rainbow is kind of like fireworks, you only get a few chances to see them a year. I wonder why people can't take some time out of their busy lives and just enjoy it?

Just as I was getting home, it started to fade away. First the violet, indigo, and blue disappeared. Then the other colors soon followed. Finally there was just a red streak that went across the sky. Then it was gone. It was nice while it lasted.

Baby Death

In most stories reporters are supposed to stay totally objective. This is especially true when covering political or social stories. However, there are stories that come along which make it almost impossible to stay on the sidelines.

Today was one of those days. We covered a story about a mom and dad, who let their three month old baby hang upside down in her carseat for 12 hours, while they were asleep. They went to bed at 2am and didn't wake up until 4pm the next afternoon.

Now why were they asleep that long? Well, I can't say here why they slept for that amount of time, but I bet you can guess why. The baby had crystal meth in her system. As far as I know crystal meth isn't a product in Flintstone Vitamins. I also know that a baby will need its diaper changed and milk several times over a 12 hour period.

This is one of those stories where we actually know more than we are at liberty to tell you. The police tell us things "off the record" and that means they are off the record.

Crazy World of News

Today is Wednesday and I'm doing news. I was supposed to have done sports yesterday, but ended up doing news. That's the way it works in this business. They called me at home around 9:30 and said no, you'll be doing news today. Of course I had things I needed to do and had an appointment, which I had to cancel. But that's to be expected when you work in a job where the news dictates the day. You don't choose your work, it chooses you.

FOX NEWS ALERT: Am I the only one who gets a little tired of all the FOX NEWS ALERTS Fox News does? Don't get me wrong, I like Fox News. But at the same time they run a news alert for things that really don't require one. The other day they ran FOX NEWS ALERT because of bad weather in the mid-West. Sorry, but that's doesn't meet my definition of a news alert.

That's not all. Sometimes it's, FOX NEWS ALERT: "A cat is stuck in a tree in Clairmont, California. Police and fire have the tree surrounded. These pictures coming to us courtesy of KTTV in L.A. We will continue to follow this story and bring you the latest. Again, a cat is stuck in a tree in Clairmont, California. Some scarry moments out there for sure. Now on to the Michael Jackson Case."

Strange Police Car

Something that those of you who drive in Huntsville might find interesting. Friday as I was driving into work, there was a police car pulled to the side of the road. It appeared to be doing speed checks. As I went by I noticed it didn't look like other Huntsville Police Cars. It had the word "police" written in large blue letters on the side. I passed and he pulled out and turned his lights on. I thought he was coming after me, but pulled another car over.

Tonight, near Madison Square Mall, I saw that car again. This time I got a close look. Under the word police, it says Thomasville, Alabama. Why is a car from Thomasville, Alabama doing speed checks in Huntsville?

So Cookie Monster is causing kids to be fat? That's what the folks at Sesame Street seem to think. Cookie Monster was always my favorite. And his song, "C is for Cookie That's Good Enough for Me", wasn't a bad philosophy to have in college.
 

Newsroom Conversations

As I continue to do sports, there's not much to add to the reporter's notebook. So I have to find other things to talk about. One thing, is that people in the newsroom seem fascinated that I've never eaten Chinese food.

Maybe that is strange, but I never have. It's possible that I could have had a part of an eggroll once, not sure. There are just many foods that I guess I've never eaten, because they just didn't strike me as something that I'd be interested in. Whenever I go out to eat with someone, the rule has always been, anything but Chinese or Mexican. Although I have relented on the Mexican part recently. I will eat the occasional burrito.

Something else that you will read and not be able to believe, I've never eaten a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I don't like peanut butter and I don't like jelly. I've never eaten a Reece's Cup. I've never eaten a Butterfinger.

Now you know more about me, than you probably wish you did. Thanks for stopping by.

What for Today?

As I mentioned in yesterday's blog, yesterday was our book drive. We ended up with around 440 books. That's not bad. Better than Jeff did in the Shoals. They were just hoping to get 50. We shot a story yesterday on the Catholic church in Guntersville. I'm not sure when it will air. Photographer Brad Hood, got sick and had to go home.

When Brad isn't there, I become a one-man-band. Basically that means I do everything myself. That's always fun, especially when I'm trying to shoot myself. You pretty much have to guess if you're even in the shot. Usually someone back at the station will let you know if you're not.

But when you one-man-band you have to set the camera up on the tripod. You then have to white balance the camera and try to frame it up to where you think you'll be in the shot. If I'm going to be live, as I was yesterday, I then have to run all the cables to the camera. Those cables hook into the transmitter which sends the signal back to Huntsville from Albertville. You then have to call the control and get tuned it. I then run back outside and hook up my ear piece (IFB). Then you get yourself in front of the camera. That's always great.

This afternoon I work in Huntsville doing sports.

Thanks for stopping by.

Wednesday

Today is our Tools for Schools Book Drive. I never realized how many people are trying to get rid of encyclopedias. It is supposed to rain. In fact it is already raining in the Shoals. That should be fun to go outside and pickup books.

Not much to blog about today. News related however is the coverage of the Pope's death. Just in my humble opinion, of the three cable news networks, Fox, CNN, MSNBC, I really think MSNBC has done the better job. That's surprising because they normally don't do the best job.

I'll be back doing sports tomorrow.

Oh yeah, Dan Satterfield now has a blog which is linked on the WHNT.com Homepage. His is linked above mine. Should I be offended? Not really.

A great deal of rambling today. I'm sorry about that. Oh yeah, i'm supposed to mention our 10pm producer Patrick Ary. There, I just did.

Thanks for stopping by.

The Joys of Working in Television-Makeup Buying

It's Monday and another sports day. This week, it's sports on Monday, Thursday and Friday. I report on Tuesday and Wednesday.

So today, I had to do something that I just really don't like to do. I had to go buy makeup. I guess in the year 2005, a man should be completely comfortable walking into a store and asking for a box of makeup or what ever it comes in. However, I'm not. Whenever I go up to the counter, I feel I must explain. "Umm, yeah, I work at Channel 19. I am a reporter. I sometimes have to wear makeup. That's why I'm buying this makeup. I don't like wearing makeup, but you understand it's just a requirement. "

I really do hate it. First, I don't know how to put it on right. Second, it clogs up your pores.

So I bought it. In case you're wondering, I wear Mac Select Sheer Pressed Powder NW25. The secret to my good looks is out.

Sunday Morning, April 3rd 

AP Convention

I attended the AP Convention Saturday night in Birmingham. Just wanted to go down and get a free meal. I also like to see the different entries. I didn't enter anything this year, but wish I had entered best sports anchor. It would have been cool to see if I could actually have won in the category. We did pretty good. Jeff Butera got two, including best reporter. James-Paul got best weather anchor and Amy got best series reporter, I believe. The station as a whole also won best spot news story.

A funny story about the first time I won an AP award. I won in 1999 for Best Spot News Story. What's funny, is that it was the first time I had ever been on live. I was fresh out of college. I was also scared out of my mind. Another thing that's funny is that it was a phoner. You never even saw me, just heard me. Yet another funny thing, is that it was up against a story from Dothan where a car had been pulled out of the river with four bodies inside. My story was about a man who was on the run and ran into a woman's house. I would have voted for the car with bodies inside.

Guntersville Mayor's Race

It's Saturday. I had yesterday off. So I wasn't there to cover the conclusion to the Guntersville Mayor's race. Although, we now know that it isn't over yet. Another hearing will be held on Thursday. I thought it was funny watching the news yesterday and hearing, "Mayor Townsend wasn't available for comment." I've been covering Guntersville for four years now, and he's never been available for comment. In four years I have never interviewed him.

If it stands and Bob Hembree is the mayor, I'm not sure if he will be more accessible or not. We'll just have to wait and see.

I hope so. If you are an elected official, you should always be accessible to the news media. When you are talking to a reporter, you're not just talking to that person, you're talking to the people who elected you, your constituents.