The Journalistic Mama

Since Jan. 6, 2007, I have followed this story.

I remember getting ready to eat breakfast on Sunday, Jan. 7. Hearing that a trooper had been killed as my dad put his coffee into the microwave to warm. He had been killed not too far from my home, and that fact devastated me.

Rumors ran rampant around town that morning. Were they drug dealers with a random target?

The suspects were apprehended that morning, in Nashville. They were brought back to Tipton County and have remained in custody since.

Though I never met Calvin Jenks, so much of my career to date has been dedicated to this trial. At first I followed the story as a resident of the community near where he breathed his last breaths. Where two teenagers from Austin, Texas, decided to end his life and leave him on a dark, lonely street in the middle of winter. Where a hunter found him and the rest of the nightmare began to unfold.

Last August I covered my first hearing for this case, nervously sitting next to my editor as we both scrawled notes and quotes on our legal pads. He taught me the ropes; this case taught me to cover a trial in a way that was deeply personal.

By November, my editor was leaving and I was left with two young men set to stand trial for first-degree murder. Cop-killers. Forget O.J. Simpson, these were the trials of the century for Tipton County.

In Dec. 2007, Orlando Garcia faced a jury and was convicted of the lesser charge of facilitation of first-degree murder, meaning that he provided a means in which Alejandro Gauna, then 17, could shoot Jenks twice in the head.

It was during that trial that I first heard the dashcam video, Jenks' southern drawl and the two pops from the handgun that signified the end of Jenks' short life. Garcia pulled Jenks out of the passenger window, got in their rental car and sped off toward Brownsville. At Wal-Mart they changed shirts, threw Jenks' flashlight in a trash can and ditched their rental car. They called drug buyers from Millington to drive them back to Nashville.

On the way to Nashville, the buyers notice an abundance of law enforcement vehicles traveling west on I-40. The trip to Nashville was silent. Gauna pays the buyers with marijuana and they leave, headed home to Shelby County. In a twist of fate, they are pulled over and eventually questioned about the murder. It was statements from these two men that led law enforcement to Tennessee's capitol city. To a Best Western. Where Garcia is waiting to be caught and Gauna lies sleeping on a bed.

I cannot successfully put into words the emotions brought about by listening to the video. During the second trial I was sitting next to two law enforcement officers, friends of the late trooper, while the jury watched the video. Thinking it could be any one of them, or any of the other troopers, deputies and police officers in the court room. And they, with tear-stained cheeks, were thinking the same thing and at the same time grieving the tragic loss of a comrade.

It was also during this video that I first heard Norm Jenks sob, distraught over the abrupt and unjust ending to his son's life.

As a journalist, these trials are where I failed to maintain my integrity. I spilled tears sitting in the courtroom, watching these grown men cry. I fought back tears as I listened to the video and to the testimony. I cried on my way home, visiting the spot where Jenks' body was found. I cried during closing arguments and victim impact statements and even during Gauna's testimony.

I know that it is my job to remain human and unbiased. My competitor sat through the court proceedings and I never saw her shed a tear. I felt weak, but I also felt human. I want to believe it's okay to cry during a sad story, laugh during a funny story and rejoice during a happy story. That, to me, sets me aside. Whether it's unprofessional or not, it's how I work. If I cannot pull emotions out of someone when reporting on an emotional murder case, I am not doing a satisfactory job.

In May, Gauna was tried and convicted of first-degree murder. It was another stressful, emotional case that wore me out. Because of the nature of his conviction, he was sentenced the following day. Life in prison with the possibility of parole after 51 years. Gauna will remain imprisoned until at least 2059. He will be 69 years old.

Following that trial, I was relieved. Relieved that the family had justice, relieved that the exhausting trial was over. I realized that after Garcia's sentencing, I would never again cover the Trooper Jenks trials. It was done. It was over. It was bittersweet, almost.

And today was that sentencing. The court heard from Jenks' mother and father, then from Garcia. "Not a day goes by that I don't hurt for every one of you," said Garcia, choked up and emotional. "Not a day goes by that I don't cry, I cry for you ... This is hard for me. I have to live with myself. One day I hope you can forgive me."

Garcia was sentenced to 19 years for the facilitation charge and 1.5 years for a drug charge. The sentences will be served concurrently and he will first be eligible for parole after 5.7 years.

Perhaps today was my last day to cover this case. Perhaps it will not be. Gauna is seeking an appeal. But I will likely be an old woman before he is eligible for release.

It's the end of a chapter - and that is ... indescribable.

________________


These last two weeks have also been indescribably busy.

It all started last Monday, with a horrific accident that left an 8-year-old dead. I made the scene that morning and got some breaking news photos. On Monday afternoon, my co-worker and I stumbled upon a meth lab being busted. I shot 104 photos for our front page and for the police.

Tuesday brought the death of the 8-year-old, a protest and a public forum on education. The protesters claim the police department wrongly pepper-sprayed about 14 people.

The rest of the week was also busy, as usual. Friday I was out of town, attending the TPA awards.

Monday of this week I didn't think I'd have much in the way of stories. However, I was busy most of Monday tracking down a breaking news story regarding the suspicious death of a 4-year-old. I was in the office for an hour before I left to make another scene; a 50-year-old diabetic amputee was missing and Tipton County had pulled out all the stops (and found him alive). I also reported on a home invasion.

On Tuesday, Justin and I went to speak to the elderly couple (wife is 94, husband is 87) whose home was invaded and I worked on other stories as well for our Progress special section. That evening, Justin and I tried to sit down with the family of the man being held for abusing the 3-year-old sister of the 4-year-old who'd passed, but they declined.

Wednesday brought about more stories for Progress, a trip to a cattle farm (in which my co-worker and I left with a lot of Angus beef - and it is damn good, too!), a meeting with local community leaders for National Night Out (which I am helping to coordinate) and what was supposed to be a night of writing (didn't happen). On the scanner I heard a shooting and a stabbing and a tractor falling on a toddler - all at the same time in three different cities.

Yesterday was paper day. I reported on the elderly couple's response to the home invasion, the shooting (a well-respected teacher was grazed) and the stabbing (girlfriend stabbed boyfriend; got into a fight because he wouldn't get butter from the store, apparently), as well as a boating accident that left a 24-year-old an amputee. The family of the incarcerated man agreed to speak to Justin and I, so we worked late and got that story too.

Today? Court for Garcia. I wrote up that story and posted it online. At least I have something done for Monday. I plan on writing up everything else I have by Monday morning. Inevitably, something will happen over the weekend because there was already another incident at the location downtown in which the teacher was shot.

Tomorrow I have a story at 8 a.m. And it's going to be a very, very hot day out - supposedly near 100°F. OY.

Also this week, my publisher announced that our largest special publication of the year would be moved up two months. Last year we worked 60-70 hours for three weeks straight to get it out. This year? Oh my hell. Between the deadline being moved up by two months, five other special publications that need to be put out before then (Halloween) and the person who does almost everything in our department being on maternity leave until early October, we are going to really be overwhelmed! We already are as it is. We would already be at the breaking point with her gone. And now? I don't know whether I want to curl up in a ball and die or start writing right this minute.

It's been a stressful two weeks with work and then with raising three kids and being in a relationship and being poor ... I'm at my breaking point. I've had to stop and take deep breaths several times today. Kids cost money that journalists don't have.

Hopefully things calm down a little bit for awhile. I believe my sanity and my blood pressure are begging.

Two months ago I was notified that a couple of my entries for the state press association contest had won awards. And I have been excited since, waiting for the day when I'd find out if I'd won first place or fifth place or something in between.

Today was that day.

The Tennessee Press Association, which partners with the University of Tennessee for the event, presented the awards during the annual luncheon at the Millennium Maxwell House Hotel. Newspaper professionals from Nebraska judged the Tennessee entries this year.

The Leader competes against other non-daily newspapers with circulations between 5,000-15,000 papers per week. Other newspapers in this category include the Hickman County Times, The Standard Banner, Roane County News, Memphis Business Journal and the Nashville Business Journal.

I was up before 6 a.m. getting the kids ready for school. They left with my mom about 6:30 a.m. and I left, headed east, promptly at 7 a.m. By 8:20 a.m. I was in Henderson, meeting with the editor and writers of another paper our company owns because I would be riding with them to Nashville. We left Henderson at 9 a.m. and arrived in Nashville by 11 a.m.

The awards luncheon didn't begin until 12:30 p.m., so we wandered around the Millennium Maxwell House Hotel for a bit, then waited outside of the banquet hall. Soon it was time.

All starving, we devoured our salads and waited on our main course. The etiquette class I took in the fifth grade actually paid off as one of the other writers I rode with commented that I was the only one of five people to use the correct fork (lol). The main course finally came, as did the awards.

First up for me was the Best Education Reporting category. During the presentation of awards, a slideshow is played which shows the winners in each category. Fourth and fifth place are not announced, only shown on the screen. Second and third receive certificates. First place receives a plaque and a photo with the Hank Dye, University of Tennessee Vice President of Public Relations and Governmental Affairs, who presents the awards.

As they announced our division of this category, I see that my paper is not listed as fourth or fifth. It was, however, listed under third place! Which is fantastic! Especially for someone who came out of nowhere, really, and jumped right into journalism with no experience whatsoever!

We sat through various other awards and finally it was time for Best Headline Writing. Not fourth or fifth. No third. No second! FIRST!! I won FIRST PLACE! So amazing! I was BEYOND thrilled!

My winning education story was a feature on a man from Mason, Tenn. who had taken a chance in applying to Princeton, was accepted and overcome many factors to end up graduating magna cum laude in June 2007. My winning headline - "The incredible inedible eggs" - comes from a story I did about frying an egg on the sidewalk, an experiment we tried last August (and failed!).

The paper also won a first place award in the Best Spot News category for a story my former editor did on a runaway emu. lol.

I am so very thankful and so very proud of myself! It wasn't that long ago that my life was completely different. And this? Should be hope to anyone feeling hopeless, feeling lost, feeling empty right now. I was all of that and more and somehow, well I wound up being an award-winning journalist. With no experience starting out.

If I can do it, anyone can.

Today was such a conflicting day. It was bad but also good.

The good is almost inconsequential. I say 'almost' because the bad is really, really bad, but the good is oh-so-good.

At noon, one of my co-workers picked me up after I dropped my car off to be serviced. We headed north of town for lunch and met with another co-worker to eat. I was in desperate need of a feature photo for the front page, so once we'd finished lunch we left the fast food restaurant in search of something, anything, I could photograph. We passed a local motel known for drugs and domestics and noticed a brush truck, fire chief and police officer. Interesting. We turned around and passed a Haz-Mat truck en route to the motel. When we arrived, I knew we'd hit pay dirt. An active meth lab had just been discovered and drug task force agents, along with firefighters, were getting ready to suit up and head inside to bring the paraphernalia out. I snapped 104 photos.

It was awesome, just happening upon a meth lab bust. Very exciting.

The uncooperative boyfriend was arrested and is probably still in custody. The girlfriend, with her hair colored an unnatural maroon, sat on a stack of pallets wearing a scrub top, shorts and flip-flops. She was smoking a cigarette, sipping a Coke and spilling her guts to two detectives and a reporter. He whips her with a belt. He treats her like a child. She's not allowed to do anything, not even set her drugs up before she uses. She was clean before they got together, now she can't get as great a high as she used to. She didn't know until recently that he was using again. She says didn't know about the meth lab. She didn't know what all of the Gatorade bottles were doing in their motel room. He has a double life, she says, another woman in Alabama. She tells us anything we want to know.

Agents make a sizable bust, they say. One more meth lab is out of business, thanks to the hard work of the task force, police officers and firefighters. And I was there to document it. It's an amazing feeling, being there when the news is actually happening. Instead of just receiving the press release and photos from the DA, I was there taking photos and trying not to inhale fumes.

After we left the scene, I called Justin and had to brag. (Justin, who lives here in Covington, is a reporter with Action News 5, our partners. We work together nearly every day.) Pay dirt, baby. I sent him photos and what information I had and they were considering it for the 6 p.m. show. Also lovely! (It's on tomorrow's front page, centered in a cyan-screened box. My head was "If you cook it, they will come.")

But midday was the only happy part of the day at work.

Our paper was really tight and so it seemed that I would not need to write a story. Our other reporter had more than enough to fill what little space I had to work with when paginating the front section. And so this morning, when a call came over the scanner that the wing was coming for a child and that the child had severe head, neck and back injuries, as well as internal injuries, Justin and I left immediately. It was a 20-minute drive and we arrived as the wing was leaving.

A tractor was in the middle of the road. Eyewitnesses said the boy was sitting on the fender and fell off, the tractor running over him. A crowd was surrounding the scene of the accident. The child's great uncle was there, and visibly shaken. Paramedics helped the white-haired man into a white Lincoln and assured him that his nephew would be okay.

"He's breathing on his own. He has a pulse. He's going to make it, he's strong."

Minutes later, a man was washing the boy's guts off of the roadway with a jug of water. Another man drove the tractor from the center of the road down towards Drummonds. And we all went on with our lives, assuming the broken boy would make it. Deputies left the scene and went on to domestics in progress and issuing citations to speeding motorists. Residents went on their way, back to their daily lives, but still thinking of the little boy. Reporters went on to do their stories, wondering through the day how the boy's mother was doing and if he was really going to be okay, remembering the 14-year-old who died a mile east of this intersection after a hit-and-run last November ... wondering if this time things would be different, if he would really make it.

But he didn't make it.

The little boy died this afternoon. Deputies reported that the Great Uncle said he and the boy often traveled that way, the pair of them riding the tractor. This morning, he said, the boy was up at 5 a.m. to ride. And they did. Until just after 9 a.m. when the boy, who apparently lost his hat, reached for it and slipped.

Tonight orange spray paint marking the tractor's tires are all that remains of the accident scene. Tomorrow I expect a cross and flowers in addition to rivers of tears.

These are the stories we have to tell even though our hearts are breaking. Tomorrow I have to be the bad guy and contact the family. If they are willing, I will do my best to tell their story. That is my job, and situations like these are never easy.

As a journalist, I have many duties. Aside from the obvious - reporting the news - I believe it is my duty to keep up with what's going on in the journalism world.

And so I have been keeping up with the blogs of other journalists, the columns of seasoned journalists and the overall media outlook, in general. In summary, as my Magic 8 Ball used to say, outlook not so good. Newspapers are a dying breed. We know this.

It seems that layoffs are all the rage lately (that's a very cool interactive map), what with nearly 1,000 journalists now standing in the unemployment line. Copy editing jobs are being outsourced to India. Newsrooms are making changes as well, going hyperlocal and reorganizing departments.

The more I read, the more I believe the big dailies are becoming more like the community papers. Aside from outsourcing our copy editing, that is (we don't, and wouldn't, do that).

It's easy for a community paper likes ours to be overshadowed by a large paper. Our competition is a paper whose circulation is an estimated 150,652 daily, which is more than 24 times our circulation twice-weekly, and covers the entire Memphis metropolitan region. This large daily paper has a bureau that covers the town of Millington, which lies in northern Shelby County, and Tipton County. In theory, they kick our butts in circulation, so why wouldn't advertisers and the public flock to them?

At a recent meeting of the board of mayor and aldermen in one of my cities, residents were outraged because I reported an incorrect time for a public hearing for a controversial issue. But the blame shifted once the vice mayor told the crowd that the town had advertised the public hearing in the larger paper, stating that many of the town's residents are transplants from Memphis and the daily paper boasts bigger circulation numbers. (Additionally, the town administrator, when I spoke to him prior to the meeting, did not tell notify me that (1) a public hearing would be held and (2) it would start 45 minutes earlier than usual. He later apologized, however.) The residents, God love them, told the mayor and aldermen that they don't take the Memphis paper, they take the local paper.

And this is how it is all over the county. Many people subscribe to the daily (we are Sunday subscribers), but they still also subscribe to our paper. Why? Because we're community-oriented. Hyperlocal if you will. You can't read the daily and know what's going on in the county. The county's coverage for today's edition was about 10 inches of copy on a school board candidate and a photo page from the Independence Day celebration. (Granted, she's one reporter covering an entire county, I completely understand.)

With many dailies now going the local route, I have to sit back and be relieved that we're a step ahead of the game. Not purposely, this is just how we do things here, and it's how things will likely always be done. Coming from a county comprised of small communities - our largest city boasts a population of approximately 10,000 people - our readers want to know what's happening on the local level. As silly as it may seem to a large daily paper (and even me, since I come from a big city), our readers want to see the first cotton blooms of the season. They want to see the guest speaker at the Exchange Club. They want to see photos from their family reunions and birthday parties. They want to keep it local. And we have been committed to that since 1886.

The reorganization of newsrooms, such as at the Tampa Tribune, is also more on board with the way community journalists do things. We have an editorial staff that is comprised of three people - two reporters and a newsroom coordinator. We don't have a copy editor, nor an editor for that matter. When our former editor left in mid-November, I began covering hard news and our other reporter covers more features. We all cover board meetings. We don't have a sports writer on staff, rather we rely on news and photos from the community in addition to stories from our freelancer, a former staff member. We layout the paper. We take our own photos. We cover a wide variety of subjects - from business to sports to education and politics. We don't cover beats, we cover everything. We are overwhelmed, but we get it done.

I know that some are apprehensive of this new newsroom model, but I have faith that it can work. Not because I'm a wide-eyed optimist, but because I live this model every single day.

And it makes me smile that, in at least two ways, community journalism is seemingly ahead of the power curve.

So it’s Monday, which means back to work and back to the regular grind of things. It’s a four-day week, with an evening meeting on Tuesday, and nothing like a divorce or a birthday or soccer practice to make this week busy beyond the point of sanity.

I can’t even wrap my head around the fact that we’re off Friday. There is just so much work to do between our monthly real estate guide and our annual Progress edition, in addition to our regular workload and planning our inaugural National Night Out here in Tipton County. I’ve also been working on taking webinars - seminars online - and reading whatever I can get my hands on that is journalism-related. New media and copy-editing in particular. I want to really hone my skills in these two areas, because if I do I should be able to build on those things and be marketable should I ever decide to leave the paper (or the paper decides I should leave or, as many predict, the newspaper becomes as outdated as phonographs and cassette tapes). And beyond that, I really want to better myself in any way I can. There’s nothing wrong with that, except for the fact that I have turned into a J-Nerd and get geeked out when I find other reporters blogging and Twittering. I have 17 new livefeeds in Firefox and 15 of those are journalism-related somehow.

I work for a paper that is published twice-weekly. I live in a county where there are a handful of people on Twitter (one is me, one is Darin’s ex-wife and a third is her friend). We rarely have breaking news and our readers/target demographic is not tech-savvy, but I would love to move our website in a new direction. A new look and feel. More user-friendly, modern and less cluttered. Blogs. Twitter feed. All of which can translate to more readership, more web traffic and thus, more advertising dollars (at least a potential for that, anyway). Some don’t think that the newspaper is a dying breed, but I see it. I love to read my byline and see my stories in newsprint, but the future of media rests not in newsprint, I’m sorry to say. I just hope to have job prospects after the dust settles. (Then again, there will always be McDonald’s and Wal-Mart.)

Also, this is not just election year on the national and state levels. No, this year we have county general and municipal elections. Once upon a time I dreamed of being a poli sci major, but those days, much like my size 4 waist, are long gone. I don’t do politics. And yet I am expected to report on things of a political nature. Oh boy. (This is where I freak out.) Our general elections and state primary in August will cover assessor of property (incumbent running unopposed) and school board elections (all incumbents, only one running opposed) as well as those for state Senate and House of Representatives (HOR) and U.S. Senate and HOR. In November, we bust out the big guns with state and U.S. Senate and House candidates plus we elect or re-elect mayors and aldermen/councilmen. Loveliness. So here’s to hoping I don’t totally screw this up. Definitely need to figure out how I’m going to pull this one off. lol.

Today Justin and I did a story on the local animal shelter and how they are in a crisis (they euthanized 60 dogs last week; typical rate is 35-40 per week). There were some lab/golden retriever puppies that were SO CUTE! I want one so bad, but I can’t have one. It would be irresponsible of me to get one right now because I’m not committed to taking care of a dog. I always said I’d consider getting one after all of my kids were potty trained, but Dad won’t let anymore animals in the house, so yeah. Not heartbroken, but I wish I could adopt one. A chocolate girl. And name her London. (Always wanted a chocolate lab named London. Don’t ask me why.) There were also some kitties that I know Jaiden would have LOVED to bring home, but we don’t need kitties, either. Maybe one day. But today’s not that day.