This account was written for the MidAtlantic News Research Conference on July 18-19, 1997.
Brooke Cain The News & Observer 10am: I get to work, check my voice-mail, email and other messages. Send replies to a couple of reporters who have sent out "help" messages that haven't been answered yet. 10:30: Talk to reporter Cathy Clabby about a project she and Joe Neff are working on, involving a "health care" business that is in some legal trouble. She needs information on the company and the owner (and the owner's husband) and we discuss the types of information she needs and what I'll get for her. I then send a message to Joe Neff letting him know that I'm working with Cathy on this and if he has any questions or if he needs duplicates of my research to let me know. 11:00: After learning a North Carolina native is about to be named Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Todd Richissin makes a request for information on Hugh Shelton. I send him all our archive stories (which the reporters usually do for themselves but since he is in a big rush and has to leave the office soon, I offer to do it for him), check for clip files and "Tar Heel of the Week," and get national profiles of him. 11:30: Get a story about DOT members taking "gratuities" in Atlanta from Atlanta paper; while I'm in nexis, get a couple of book reviews for Columnist Dan Gearino. 12 Noon: Lunch 12:45: Message from Dane Huffman, sports writer in our Charlotte bureau. He needs to know the parents of the wife of a football player (he actually needs to contact them) and he asks me to search national papers for their recent wedding announcement. I do this and find nothing. I call him back and he tells me the parents live in San Diego and that the woman is also from there but has lived in Charlotte for the past year since marrying. I decide to do an Autotrak report, hoping her parents are listed. Sure enough, they are. I send him the information. He is amazed. I am revered. 1:30: Todd Richissin now needs the most recent population of Speed, NC (pop. 91) and an obit of an old general named Max Thurmond. 2:00: Sports writer Steve Elling comes to me with more information regarding a tip he received about a possible serious traffic ticket that a player for a local college basketball player may have received. The player has an out of state license, so I check AutoTrak "Driver's of the Nation" and learn he does have a valid license and get his exact address there. Then I call the NC DMV press contact and talk to her about what kind of information we can get on him if he received the ticket in North Carolina. She gave me the information from her records about the other past tickets he has received and confirmed that his license is not revoked but that his driving privileges in NC have been suspended. This supports part of Steve's tip. She explains that other tickets will not show up in her system until or unless he is actually convicted of the offense. I relay all this information to Steve and give him her phone number and the number of her counterpart in South Carolina. 2:45: Todd Richissin now needs me to search Army Times for stories about Hugh Shelton and he reminds me that Army Times is available on AOL. Not remembering (or not realizing) that Army Times (and Military City Online) is now available on the WEB, I spend about 25 minutes trying to get my stupid, useless AOL software to work. I enlist Sperry's help and we finally get it going. It takes forever b/c of the nature of the beast, and when I finally get through to Army Times, there's nothing really there on Shelton. I get Todd one story and he says he has enough and that he'll recommend I get a credit line for my help. 4:00: Kyle Spencer comes back and asks about databases we have on Raleigh Police Department incident reports. I search our "Database of databases" and get her printouts of each applicable database we have. She says she will look at these and decide what she needs and then talk to Charles deBose (database guy) if she needs a tape loaded (because we can't tell from the printouts if the tapes have been loaded or not, but I think they have because we used some of these last week while researching the owner of an unlicensed daycare who had a baby die of a head trauma while in her care). 4:30: Begin some of the research for Cathy Clabby that we discussed earlier in the day (she did not need it right away so I put it lower on my list of priorities). Checked Secretary of State records for the company; call DMV to get a list of vehicles owned by the owners of the company in question. 5:30: Show someone where the maps are. 5:35: Read the wires to see the latest on the Versace murder 5:45: For Clabby request, get a Duns Market Identifier on the company to give her basic information; do a search of online publications to see what, if anything, has been written about the company. Make a note to call the county of residence tomorrow to get list of properties owned by the people in question. 6:30: Pack up, go home.
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