Sunday, August 12, 2007

GateHouse teamwork leads Daily to jump on church shooting story

You have read it on this blog time after time.
The best spot news reporter in southwest Missouri is John Hacker of The Carthage Press, a longtime reporter for the Joplin Globe. Give Hacker credit with putting the Neosho Daily News team on the hunt for the story long before the Joplin Globe or the area electronic media.
Hacker heard the first reports on the incident coming over his scanner and quickly called the folks at the Daily. Judging from the Daily website (which apparently has momentarily crashed due to the heavy traffic), Publisher Rick Rogers and reporter Todd Higdon were on the spot.
The Daily posted its first internet story about an hour before the Globe, which posted at 5:51 p.m. if the time stamp on the story is accurate.
The Springfield News-Leader, relying on wire services, also had it on the website about an hour before the Globe.
It appears that KOAM was the first Joplin area television station to run a bulletin on the shooting, timing it shortly after 6 p.m., just after the conclusion of the PGA Open and just before the beginning of 60 Minutes.

The Globe article features an interview with the church's senior pastor, Tom Thorne:

The shooting took place in the sanctuary of First Congregational Church, 115 N. Wood St., where a Micronesian congregation was having an afternoon service, said the Rev. Tom Thorne, the church’s senior pastor.

“A lot of members of the congregation are family,” Thorne told the Globe. “I visited with several of the family members and tried to help them understand what was going on.”

Thorne said he was not at the church when the shooter invaded. The Micronesian congregation has its own pastor, he said.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Not to blow anyone's horn, but KSN ran a bulliten around 4pmish and another closer to 7pm.

Anonymous said...

John Hacker is the best shoeleather reporter in this part of the state. I tip my cap to him.

Anonymous said...

John did a great job helping out his colleagues in Neosho, but the real credit should go to Todd Hidgon, his editor John Ford and their publisher Rick Rogers. Todd not only arrived on scene within 15 minutes to help lead the Daily's coverage, he also did two live interviews with CNN, to help get the information.

We all love Hacker, but it's time Randy looked past his giant man-crush on the Big Red Machine.

Anonymous said...

Anon 7:23 is right, Randy. Todd, Rick and John were on the story before I got in touch with them. I did hear about the incident on my scanner, I did call Rick after confirming with the Newton County Sheriff that they had a serious incident working, but Rick told me they had already found out about it. I offered to help and ended up going down with Nick Parker to lend a hand, but they would have done fine without me. They ended up with the best day 1 coverage of the event of anyone, including the associated press and the Globe. I appreciate the comments, but I don't want to take credit for something I didn't do. Nick Parker and I just helped out an already quality group of reporters.
Thanks,
John Hacker