:: Earl Green - Freelance Television Writer / Producer ::

On the anniversary of the Pearl Harbor bombing, local survivor Herman E. Stout vividly recalls the events he witnessed while serving there.

I don’t do them too often, but when I do edit a news package, I tend to enjoy it. In this case, the idea to edit the whole piece on the Avid came out of a discussion with the videographer who shot the piece; as it was already going to be a “nats pack” (a package consisting entirely of “nats,” or “natural sound,” without any reporter voice tracks), why not just do it up a bit? By the time we were done with the package, we were both pretty happy with it.

By the way, it was my privelege and honor to help tell Mr. Stout’s story. And I don’t often say that about something I do at work. This package aired on December 7th on 40/29 News at Ten.

A great story that just came together at the last minute, this is an interview with a husband and wife who were forced at gunpoint to help rob a local bank. The interview video was great, though I had to use some stock video as best I could to disguise the fact that the whole thing was just a little bit low on B-roll. Really, though, the smart bet was to stay on the interview footage, which was emotional enough that it would’ve been a mistake to cover up too much of it.

This story aired on April 23rd, 2003 at 10pm; the reporter was Melissa Yeager and the photog was Brett Rains.

Arkansas Associated Press Award Winner, 2003

Ricky Newman was the suspect in a high-profile local murder case involving a homeless woman. Not only did Newman confess to the killing, but he even put himself up as a candidate for the death penalty. 40/29 reporter Sean Brown conducted a prison interview with Newman, during which he repeatedly stated his belief that he should be executed, and recounted the story of the killing with what appears to be very little remorse. This is one of thoses cases where if you’ve got footage like this, you can’t go wrong, though in retrospect, I have spotted a couple of edits and editorial choices I’d probably handle differently now.

This story aired in the 10pm news on August 19th, 2002, and later won an Arkansas AP Award.

This is an edited-together version of a two-part sweeps package that I edited in 2002, concerning a local man of Middle Eastern origin who was rounded up in the aftermath of September 11th, 2001. In the news feeding frenzy that surrounded this arrest, the other two news stations in the area both managed to disclose Omar’s name and even where he worked on the air, before those details were officially released in any capacity; when it came time for his wife to tell their story, 40/29 was the only station that got this level of access. It’s a pretty solid package, and we wanted to edit it in a way that the station’s all-tape edit bays just couldn’t do. The decision was also taken - this being exactly two months after 9/11 - to take it easy on any actual 9/11 footage and show it only fleetingly. (Shots of planes going into buildings were already forbidden by this time, and I was surprised I got away with the shot of the towers.) The shot of the computer screen depicting the internet ticket reservations for 9/11 was a bit of graphical fakery on my part, but it doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb.

This story aired on November 12th and 13th, 2001. The reporter was Courtney Monie and the photog was Eric Semmel; they later got married, and Hady Omar was later released, though by now his chances of living any kind of normal life in this area were trashed and he and his family left for greener pastures.