September 2007 - Posts
(From Eric Jackson, TODAY Associate Producer)
First, before I get into my anchor Q&A with Ann Curry, I would like to thank her for taking the time to sit down with me not once, but twice, due to technical difficulties. You see, in preparation for this interview, I went out and bought this new tape recorder. I even did the cheesy "test, test, test, test" audio check before going to talk to Ann. Seriously--ask my cubicle neighbors. Well, little did I know that this tape recorder has this feature where, if the audio in the room is too low, it stops recording. And wouldn't you know it--the audio, at times, was too low. So I finish the interview, come back to write it up, and as I'm listening to it, panic sets in. I had practically nothing. I felt like I had just been Punk'd. I e-mail Ann and her assistant, Claire, right away, mortified beyond belief. Ann e-mails me right back and says that it's no problem, we'll do it again tomorrow, later explaining that early in her career, she had a similar problem. So, thank you again to Ann. What follows is our conversation....take two.
Q: First off, this is the third week of TODAY’s fourth hour. How's it going so far?
Ann: It seems to be going OK. It's feeling more and more comfortable every day. I hope so at least. I hope that process will continue, that it will continue to get better and better. I hope it's useful more than anything else.
Q: What sort of topics do you want to bring to that hour?
Ann: I want to show our viewers the world. That's my wish -- to let our viewers know what's going on in the world. We're talking a lot about how to improve their lives, friendships. These are important topics. We'll see how this progresses, but we're really trying to understand what women at this hour need. We're going to do our best to fulfill their needs.
Q: The fourth hour is just another thing on your already-full plate. Aside from TODAY, you do Dateline and sometimes fill in on Nightly News, to name just a few of your other responsibilities. How do you handle it? Is it overwhelming sometimes?
Ann: Sure it is. I was joking that sometimes I feel I need an intervention (laughs). You know, I'm not complaining, though. This is a great opportunity to be useful, and that's my wish. I want very much to not look back and think that I had not done enough. So for right now, I keep my priorities straight. I don't go out at night, except on Friday nights. I'm a school night girl, home for homework and dinner. And we have a rule at our table. No matter how late it is, we sit down together and eat. Sometimes dinner is cold. Sometimes it's not exactly as I would've wished in terms of the food. But that's not what matters. It's the conversation.
Continue reading the interview at AllDay blog
By Marianne O'Donnell, Dateline Producer
My car wipers were fighting back a steady rain as I peered through the windshield, trying to get my bearings in a place called Cheshire, Connecticut. I was beginning to wonder why I picked this day to slog up I-84 from New York City to knock on doors in a distant town. Would I find anyone out on a day like this? And even if I did, would they talk about what had happened here?
Eventually, I found the street I was looking for: Sorghum Mill Drive. As I turned onto it I stopped the car almost instantly. There was a sign up ahead that warned would-be speeders to slow down. "We love our children," it read. I was getting a serious case of the creeps.
Evil comes to all types of people all over the world. But it's not supposed to trespass here, in leafy enclaves that proudly demand their children's safety. Yet somehow in the early, dark hours of July 23, the devil slipped through the back door at 300 Sorghum Mill Drive and into the heart of the Petit house. It's believed that two intruders, parolees, broke into the home and terrorized a doctor, his wife and two daughters over the course of seven hours before ending their rampage with gasoline and a match.
CONTINUED >>
By John Larson, NBC News
The first day I met Susan Adams I thought she was sweet. I was pretty much wrong. The second day, I thought Susan was unforgiving. Very wrong. By the third day, we were good friends and our friendship grew with time.
In 1996 I arrived in Hawaii for a story and discovered, much to my embarrassment, that I had left my credit card and identification in Los Angeles. So my first introduction with Susan Adams went like this, “Hi, I’m John. Can you loan me $600?” She looked at me with her, “I think this guy is probably a hopeless loser” look, but gave me the money. We began working, and by the first evening she was upset with our four hired crewmembers. She thought they were taking poor pictures for our story. The next evening, she fired all of them.
CONTINUED >>
One of the safest towns in America reignites a cold case that haunted police for decades after the mysterious killing of a middle class professor's wife and mother of four. Keith Morrison travels to Buffalo, N.Y. to report on the death of Joan Diver and the possible return of the town's "bike path rapist," Dateline NBC on Sept. 5 at 10 p.m.
By Rayner Ramirez, Dateline Producer
Buffalo, NY – The City of Good Neighbors is "not a small town, but a big room with a large couch." Local historian Bill Zimmerman says that it’s the type of town where everyone knows everyone -- or soon will. From my experience working on this story Buffalo truly is a city of good neighbors.
CONTINUED >>
