On The News

"On the News" is an intriguing title. At first, you might think that I'm about to give a review of a book criticizing the current state of reporting. Next, it occurs to you that I myself might about to spout off on modern media. That'd be kind of odd for me to do, but it wouldn't be suprising. Finally, you reason, "On the News" is probably the name of a new segment that I'm going to introduce for either Delta or Epsilon. I mean, look at that graphic! It has to be a new feature. Yeah, that's it. I introduce new features all the time, and "On the News" sounds like one of Chuck's titles, you reason. I hope, for my sake, that you did come to that conclusion. Because you are wrong.

On Saturday, March 25, 2006, one of my photographs was on the news. ("Ah," you now say. What an incredibly complex, misleading introduction he had! I don't understand it, but it was clever. And I want to tell you something: thanks for the compliment. Wasn't it clever?) My photograph was seen on WOOD TV8's 6 and 11 pm newscasts, during the weather.

See, on Saturday afternoon, there was this real freak hailstorm that went on through Jenison/Grandville. It was really, really strange. It came down in force, but it seemed to affect pretty much just that area. The hail was pea-sized, as my weather spotter sister informed me. (Not that you need to be a weather spotter to identify something at being pea-sized!) So I got out my digital camera and snapped a few photos.

I then tried e-mailing them to TV8, and kept trying, but stupid Mailer-Daemon kept spitting them back! I felt like my e-mails were stuck in internet purgatory. Eventually, I found out that my gravest mistake was trying to send more than one photo at once. I eventually just sent two separate e-mails, around 6 pm. About fifteen minutes later, one of my pictures was used during the forecasts, with full credit given even! It was pretty exciting.

Next time, the graphic that reads "On the News" might actually be an op-ed piece about the media. But this time, it simply means that one of my photos has, in fact, been on the news. This is my second time being published; in fall, 2005, a photo was published in the Grand Valley edition of the local Advance Newspapers, showing firefighters battling a house fire.