It’s interesting to me how you can forget something for so long, and then something unexpectedly triggers a memory. One of my news friends, Arthur Nerio, posted this morning about a story he covered during the holidays a few years back. And I immediately remembered one I covered that I will never forget. It was back in 2001 and I was working at KTAL (the NBC affiliate here in Shreveport). One weekend reporter Kevin Kern and I were working on a story about depression during the holidays. Naturally the best place to find people during this time of year is where there is shopping, so we went to Pierre Bossier Mall. It was a rather uneventful day, and we were able to finish our story without a problem.

Now, fast forward a few months later. I was sitting at Chili’s eating with my wife when my pager went off (yes, a pager, this was 2002 after all). I called back to the newsroom and they told me there had been a homicide there in Bossier, not too far from where I was. So I apologized to my wife, left my food, and headed over to the crime scene. When I rolled up on the scene it just felt, well, unusual. Crime in Bossier City isn’t unheard of, but it wasn’t very common in this particular neighborhood. So, I did my job; I got video of the scene, and spoke with a detective on camera. I left there, and although I had been in the business for less than a year I was already getting numbed and jaded at covering crime. It was just another day.

But over the next few days it became apparent that this wasn’t an isolated incident. That homicide was related to two other murders over the weekend. The subject, Bert Mercer, had evaded police and then went on the run for the next few weeks. We eventually got word that America’s Most Wanted was planning a special report on the manhunt for Bert Mercer.

Now, you’ve got to understand that at this point I’m so jaded about covering crime that I’m actually quite excited about video I shot from that homicide being on America’s Most Wanted. The human element to the story was completely lost on me.

So we started searching through our file video to send anything we had on Bert Mercer to America’s Most Wanted. But then the strangest thing happened. Our head video editor, Roland Pfingsten, came across a random search result… Holiday Depression, the story Kevin Kern and I had covered a few months before. We were puzzled. How in the world would that story come up while searching for Bert Mercer? But when the examined the script his name appeared. And when they pulled the tape, there he was.

We had interviewed him for our story on holiday depression, just a few months before he snapped and killed three people.

We had his image. We had his voice. So we sent the tape to America’s Most Wanted and they aired it so people could be on the lookout for him.

And I had my first realization about covering the news… It isn’t abstract, it isn’t meaningless information that affects no one. It’s concrete, it’s real, it’s in your face. It happens to real people, people you meet every day.

This holiday season I’m thankful that I had a job at a young age that taught me that my own little world isn’t the real world. I’m thankful for a job that taught me that bad things happen to good people. That I should cherish every minute of life as if it were my last. And I’m thankful for a job that taught me that appearances can be deceiving, that those who appear to have it all together seldom do, and that trust cannot be bought, but must be earned.