Field Notes

Covering Caylee Anthony – sensational and sad

2009-06-16T13:40:00Z

By Kerry Sanders, NBC News Correspondent

Orlando, Fla. – Orange County detectives believe 2-year-old Caylee Anthony was murdered one year ago.

It took about a month before her mother, then 22-year-old Casey Anthony, revealed Caylee was missing.

Cindy Anthony, Casey’s mother, dialed 9-1-1 and within hours, the saga began to unfold in dramatic, and at times, tabloid fashion.

VIDEO: Caylee Anthony's disappearance, one year later

From the deepest recesses of my memory, I can’t remember a human drama story that’s quite like this one.

The closest is the story of Elian Gonzalez.

I covered those developments from the moment the young Cuban boy was found on a raft in the Florida Straits, to the day he was forcibly taken by federal authorities from his Miami home, and finally to Elian’s eventual return to his father in Cuba.

Still, this murder investigation is different. Sensational, yes, but it’s always sad.

It’s important to remember, and it’s always on my mind: a little girl is dead.

Still, there are bizarre developments. Some you may have heard; others never went reported.

Here they are, in no particular order:

*There was the psychic who contacted NBC News to say she thought she knew where Caylee’s remains were.

She even sent us a video via the Internet pointing out the location.

It wasn’t news. Another crazy caller we figured.

Guess what?

We looked at the tape again after Caylee’s remains were discovered. Eerily, Caylee was found less than 200 yards from where the psychic sensed the 2-year-old’s presence.

...(read more)

Goodbye to the ‘Honk Tree’

2009-05-01T16:33:00Z

By Stephanie Himango, NBC News Producer

A tree has died in Minnesota. You may think it sounds silly, but the tree’s demise has made those of us who knew it sad. And mad.

From the time I was a small child on the shore of Lake Superior, it was special when we drove past the "Honk Tree."

The pine tree stood awkwardly and proudly in the vast median of Highway 61 between the northern Minnesota towns of Two Harbors and Duluth. During the summer months, it had green grass at its feet, and in the long winter months, white snow.

Stephanie Himango

The famous “Honking Tree” landmark on Minnesota’s Highway 61 before it was destroyed by vandals.

As the story goes, in the 1960's, a highway engineer named Charlie Hensley insisted that during construction of "the new highway 61," the tree should be spared.

For years, it was known to be the only tree to stand in the median for that 21-mile stretch. Over the years, it grew from a small tree to a big strong one.

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Solemn ceremony honors war dead

2009-04-08T17:09:00Z

By Courtney Kube, NBC News’ Pentagon Producer

DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Delaware - The widow stepped gently off the small blue bus, dressed all in black. She was surrounded by family members and several uniformed members of the military. She looked stunned and frail.

She was at Dover Air Force Base to witness the "dignified transfer" of her husband who was killed in Iraq.

Paul J. Richards / AFP - Getty Images

Members of the U.S. Army Old Guard carry the remains of Army Specialist Israel Candelaria Mejias shortly after his body was returned to the U.S. from Iraq on Tuesday.

Tuesday evening was just the second time in 18 years that members of the media were allowed to witness the solemn ritual surrounding the return of remains of fallen U.S. service members; the first time was Sunday evening.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates ordered the military to lift the ban on media coverage and allow the public to witness the homecoming of America’s war dead, if the family allows it.

But while the family witnesses the event just a few yards away from the media, the Dover rules strictly prohibit the media from taking any photos of them. Even though we all do our best to avert our eyes and give them their privacy, their presence is palpable and heartbreaking.

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‘The last stand’ against rising floodwaters

2009-03-27T15:29:00Z

By Leo Juarez, NBC News Producer

OXBOW, N.D. – It took big, yellow earth movers to get across the floodwaters. But instead of moving dirt, they were ferrying volunteers to help sandbag the home of Robert and Bridgette Startz.

The couple's home in Oxbow, N.D. – just south of Fargo – was an island when we found it, and many of their neighbors had already been rescued via Coast Guard air boats from the rising Red River. But the Startzes and their three kids were staying put for now.

Scott Olson / Getty Images

Volunteers receive a lift to a sandbag filling point on Thursday in Oxbow, North Dakota.

"Kind of like an Alamo," said Robert Startz. "The last stand."

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Battle on the Red River

2009-03-26T16:39:00Z

By Kevin Tibbles, NBC News Correspondent MOORHEAD, Minn. – I’m standing on the banks of the Red River in Moorhead, Minn., looking across toward Fargo while police close down one of the bridges. The rising waters are now lapping up against the top of the metal structure and it appears ready to go under. Down the way, a long freight train trundles across another bridge, which also appears to be in a precarious state. VIDEO: Record flooding feared Despite the...(read more)

White sand beaches can't lure tourists

2009-03-04T15:34:00Z

By Erika Angulo, NBC News Researcher

ST. THOMAS, U.S. Virgin Islands – "Please buy something and help me keep my job," Sylvia Brown kept repeating to potential shoppers as they trickled into the Coral World Ocean Park gift store in St. Thomas on a recent morning.

The U.S. Virgin Islands’ resident has been helping customers at the Coki Point Beach aquarium’s souvenir store for more than 10 years. As the economy in the mainland worsens, she is seeing fewer shoppers.

"We keep waiting for things to get better," she said as she folded pastel-colored T-shirts at the nearly empty store, "but we haven’t had a real tourist season in two years." The store manager has cut everyone’s work hours to avoid cutting staff.

Courtesy of James Kizer

Salomon Bay Beach on St. John, one of the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Brown is one of thousands of workers increasingly concerned about how the weak economy will affect their livelihood in this U.S. Territory surrounded by white, fine sand and turquoise water.
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TV stations pulling the plug on analog

2009-02-17T21:10:00Z

By George Lewis, NBC News Correspondent

In San Diego, they’re bringing down the curtain on 60 years of broadcast history just before midnight tonight.

KFMB-TV, a pioneer television station that first took to the air on May 16, 1949, will switch off its signal on Channel 8 for the last time. The station, a CBS affiliate, will pull the plug in the middle of “Late Night with David Letterman.” But KFMB-TV isn’t going out of business; it’s one of four San Diego stations changing from analog transmission to digital under federal rules that will free up the airwaves for other purposes.

All told, 421 U.S. television stations will sign off analog broadcasts tonight, affecting only viewers with who get their television on conventional receivers the old-fashioned way: over the air, through antennas. Previously, 220 other stations in Hawaii, Wilmington, N.C. and Chico-Redding, Calif. made the changeover. Customers who subscribe to cable or satellite TV won’t notice any changes at all.

Still, the outfit that brings you the ratings, the Nielsen Co., estimates that 6.5 million homes nationwide are unprepared because they don’t have newer digital sets or haven’t purchased converters for their older TVs. (In San Diego, the largest television market with the majority of stations terminating analog broadcasts tonight, it’s estimated that 65,000 households receiving over-the-air TV are not ready for the transition.)
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The plague of the ‘TV dinner’

2009-02-13T15:58:00Z

By John Baiata, NBC News’ Senior Editor

I blame Swanson.

When the venerable American food company rolled out its latest product in 1953, two household appliances – the freezer and the television, were becoming commonplace. The marriage of convenience between the two resulted in a bastard progeny - the frozen TV dinner.

Marketed as a way for Americans to enjoy their meals while they basked in the warm glow of the cathode rays emanating from their television sets, the Swanson TV dinner was an instant hit. Nearly four generations on, the sins of Gerry Thomas (the man credited for inventing both the product and the name for Swanson) are now being visited upon media-saturated Americans everywhere.

Televisions in eating establishments are as ubiquitous these days as battered stock portfolios. What started as a sensible business model for owners of sports bars and pubs to lure more couch potatoes out of their dens, has devolved into a trend more invasive than any fungal infection.

They're everywhere.

Airports. Check-out lines. Waiting rooms. Then, the final straw: restaurants. The National Restaurant Association, in a 2007 survey, estimated that 69 percent of casual dining establishments, and 50 percent of fine dining establishments offered televisions for customer entertainment. Make it stop.

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Tornado's telltale sign: pink insulation everywhere

2009-02-12T17:20:00Z

By Al Henkel, NBC News Producer

LONE GROVE, Okla. – It's the insulation in the trees that directs you where to go when you cover a tornado.

More than the twisted siding, or trees down, or flashing emergency lights after dark – tornados always, and I mean always, leave the pink insulation found in your attic and inside the walls of your house everywhere. You’ll see it plastered to the smallest twigs on trees, flapping in the wind on the points of barbed wire, and hidden in places only to resurface weeks or months later.

VIDEO: Okla. residents return to destruction

There's a lot of insulation in the trees here in Lone Grove, Okla. A tornado with winds estimated at 170 mph ripped through Lone Grove just after dark Tuesday night – destroying dozens of homes in its path and leaving at least nine dead.

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Midland watches and awaits a welcome home

2009-01-20T17:06:00Z

By Janet Shamlian, NBC News Correspondent MIDLAND, Texas – I'm sitting in the lobby of the Hilton in Midland, Texas where it's standing room only around the lobby television, as images of the millions who have packed Washington are flashed on the screen. A crowd of guests, police officers and hotel workers are glued to the screen as the swearing-in ceremony is about to begin. Even at this venue, thousands of miles from the Capitol, the excitement is palatable. The irony, of course, is that...(read more)