Notes from the field
By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor
This has been an eventful day: the ride (under heavy guard) from Bagram into downtown Kabul, our tour of the courtyard of the guest compound where so many died yesterday -- and then to top it all off, while we were working in our rented building in Kabul late tonight, an earthquake. It was a long, slow roller -- like surfing -- though somewhat weaker in intensity than some of the quakes I’ve experienced in California. We went through the usual "delay" before realizing just what was happening (considering where we are, every time something shakes, its also possible there's been an explosion), and then watched as fixtures started to swing. Obediently, I stood in the doorway of my room as Senior Producer Subrata De did the first thing she thought of: she got her Flip camera and we started making a video toward the end of the quake. Several of our staff members were jolted out of bed by it and we've had one small roller since then. We hopped on an earthquake-monitoring site on the web and discovered that today's quake had been a 6.0 centered near the Hindu Kush -- the scene of the last big one -- and we had felt one of the outer bands. Just another day in Afghanistan. We sure hope you can join us tonight.
By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor
I am living inside a containerized shipping box. It’s a base housing unit here at Bagram, and it’s actually perfect. Small? You betcha. It’s tiny, taken up mostly by bunk beds. But it’s got all the comforts of (a very tiny) home, and we feel fortunate to have a place to rest our heads and take a shower at an Air Base where they have other things to worry about... aside from where to put the folks visiting from NBC.
During a few hours of down time this afternoon, I quickly fell into a deep, exhaustion-fueled sleep. I was awakened by an explosion. Luckily, I've heard my share (like one every 30 seconds on the third night of the invasion in Bagdhad) and wasn't overly alarmed. I could tell it was some distance away. Only when I got to our workspace tonight was I told it was a "Controlled Det" in military parlance: a detonation conducted by the Army. I apparently slept through the announcement on the P. A. system warning that it was about to happen. Considering the violence in Kabul today, an explosion made perfect sense to me.
It was also a reminder that we are in a war zone.
Then there are the people you meet here in uniform. CONTINUED >>
By Mike Taibbi, NBC News correspondent
Funny how memory works. You can think about something that's familiar to you, research the subject in the ways encouraged by Google, and begin the work of reporting on that same subject because, after all, that's your job, and then in a moment, a millisecond, something internal kicks in and it's no longer about information, it's about how you felt in your bones and your heart when that subject first became familiar to you.
That's what happened during the process of reporting on the fortunes of family-owned CF Martin and Company in Nazareth, Pennsylvania. They make Martin guitars, the standard in the industry for, oh, around 175 years. From Dylan and Clapton, to Elvis and Johnny Cash. Threesomes like the Kingston Trio and Peter Paul & Mary. Duos like Simon and Garfunkel...you get the idea.
Nightly News producer Bob Adschiew had pitched the story to me and I'd said “sure.” His take was that family owned businesses, which make up 90 per cent of the businesses in America and employ 60% of all workers, had unique challenges and opportunities in the tanking economy. With the economy cratering last fall, Martin, like other businesses, considered all the options while some stopgap measures – a freeze on hiring and overtime, for example – were put in place. But because of the unique nature of the business, not just ownership but employees handing down their love of the craft from generation to generation, the current boss, CF Martin IV, refused to resort to layoffs or even a temporary plant shutdown. They'd continue to make guitars...by hand. Each instrument went through 60 work stations and over 300 individual processes, all visible to anyone from the public who wanted to see how it's done.
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by Mike Mosher, Nightly News Senior based in Los Angeles
Mosher was based in the Middle East from 1974-1980
Imagine the knock on the door early in the morning to be told, “You’ve won the Nobel Peace Prize. It happened to me.
Cairo, Egypt October 27, 1978, (BC) -- before cable and before Twitter there was telex, often the only means for my New York headquarters to relay breaking news to the field reporters. The telex machine was especially important in places like Cairo where an international phone call required booking a day in advance.The machine punched out and received lines of text messaging on a roll of paper. If the news was really urgent there was a bell key. The sender could ‘ding’ ‘ding’ ding’ until someone woke up on the other end.
Ahmad was the overnight doorman in the Cairo news bureau. During the day Ahmad made tea for the staff, but at night he knew if the telex ‘dinged’ he was to find someone from the news staff.
“Dr. Mosher”, Ahmad said with excitement, (Egyptians are generous with titles), “Bell is beating! Bell is beating!” I thanked Ahmad for his diligence.
‘Now Ahmad read it to me slowly.’
“It is saying …URGENT URGENT, MOSHER SADAT AND BEGIN HAVE WON THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE MILLIS”
Millis was Walter Millis the New York desk editor that day. Telex talk often omitted punctuation.
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By Janet Shamlian, NBC News correspondent
Route 231 is just off Interstate 40, about a half-hour outside Nashville. And like clockwork, the bus bound for Wilson Central High stops on the busy road every school morning at 7:10. It seems an unlikely spot to be picking up children until you see the campers and tents set up just off the road.
What happens when moms and dad lose their jobs and can't make the mortgage? Tough times call for creative solutions and we found one of them in central Tennessee. That's where families who used to own homes in suburbs near the campground are now living in it. It's a step toward stability, an effort to keep their kids in the same schools as they try to regain financial footing.
You'll find tricycles and strollers on Timberline's pebbled roads, and the campground office is stocked with school supplies -- free to any child in need. For now, it's home...and one with a silver lining at that. These families who've lost so much financially say they've found something money can't buy; a neighborhood of people who care.
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By Janet Shamlian, NBC News correspondent
The day was eerily similar to last September 12th. Foreboding skies, swollen clouds and deceivingly light rain. I was back in Galveston a year after Hurricane Ike, but there was no killer storm bearing down on the island this trip.
A year ago we were holed up in what everyone described as Galveston's safest spot, the sparkling San Luis hotel. The mayor had checked in as had every police officer and firefighter in the city. They were priority guests, assigned rooms on the lowest of the 16 floors to enable a quick departure once the elevators became useless. I was on 15.
There's no sleeping when you're in the path of a hurricane, even if it is the middle of the night. And there was nothing calming about the San Luis' subtle but alarming sway. "It's built to do this," a man assured a group gathered in the hallway. "I promise, you won't be one of my customers," he said with a smile, explaining he owned a Galveston funeral home. Back in my room, I could hear the sliding glass door, which faced the Gulf's open waters, bashed by the wind and writhing in its track. Water seeped in from the balcony and soaked the room's carpet. With cell towers long gone, there was no way to text my family or call NBC. The power had been out for hours, and it was dark and damp.
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By Janet Shamlian, NBC News correspondent
It used to be the epitome of the American dream. Jobs were plentiful in this heartland town, and hard working miners took pride in knowing the lead ore they extracted became bullets for both World Wars. Times were good in Picher, Oklahoma, and the population soared.
Just a bike ride from the Kansas border, you can still find Picher on a map, but today it's little more than that. The schools closed in July, the post office shut down last month and city hall went dark last week. Only a dozen or so people are still living on the small patch of land that's been called the most toxic town in America.
You can guess the rest. The same industry that delivered prosperity to Picher's front door later crept in the back and robbed it of its riches. The soil is poisoned, the water runs orange and the air has been ruled unsafe. Government buyouts started a few years ago, and most families left as soon as they could. But roots run deep in Picher, and a handful of holdouts haven't had the heart or the will to up and leave.
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By Janet Shamlian, NBC News correspondent
It looks perfectly peaceful. There's not a shred of cell phone service, the roads are gravel and the views are to die for. But on the tiny island of Matinicus, 20 miles off the coast of Maine, the waters are anything but calm and folks are in a boil over the region's bread and butter. With lobster prices at a 20-year low, the industry is facing tough times. Fuel and bait expenses are up while the dock price -- what a lobsterman gets for his catch -- is in the neighborhood of $2.50 a pound. That's almost 50-percent less than just two years ago.
Maine Lobstermen are free to drop their traps anywhere in state waters and more of them have been doing just that near Matinicus recently. The town's full-time residents, fewer than 50, fear for their livelihood and are asking for an unusual measure of protection. CONTINUED >>
by Ron Allen, NBC News correspondent
Our Making a Difference story tonight is about a guy named John Annoni of Allentown, PA. What you need to know about him is that he's a father, a teacher, and a very avid outdoorsman. What's unusual about him is that he grew up in the inner city not in a rural community where hunting and fishing are more common. Annoni brings all of that together at a place he calls Camp Compass Academy.
We were attracted to the story because of Annoni's basic premise. His goal is to take young people from urban areas and expose them to places and pastimes they most likely would never experience. It struck a cord for me because I grew up in an urban area, Jersey City, NJ. I had parents and relatives who were determined to show my sister and me things and places beyond our neighborhood.
So, starting at a very young age there were frequent trips to museums, Broadway plays, even trips skiing, lots of time traveling in the back seat of the car, and of course just about every summer visits to camps. Day camps first. Then trips away from home for a week or two. Later in life as a college student, I spent several summers working at camps as a counselor, tutor and teacher. Looking back, I know all of that expanded my notion of what was possible in life.
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Editors note: Albert Oetgen, Managing Editor NBC News Washington, is in Ghana with the NBC News team following President Barack Obama and the first family.
By Albert Oetgen, Managing Editor NBC News Washington
ACCRA – President Obama wowed Ghana's Parliament today with an old-fashioned stemwinder, one part emotional homecoming and one part economic Sermon on the Mount. The White House message machinists billed it a "major speech," the Africa component of Obama foreign policy: Embrace democracy, build solid financial and social institutions and jettison corruption, he preached. The parliament's enthusiastic response: "Amen."
What is striking here is the apparent absence of cynicism, an institution embedded in American culture and one Mr. Obama would certainly discourage his African audiences from adopting. America's own overdeveloped brand of cynicism is largely fueled these days by increasingly tired and numbingly hackneyed media blathering. Today, one roomful of American journalists listened as Mr. Obama declared, "the 21st Century is going to be shaped by what happens not just in Rome or Moscow or Washington, but by what happens in Accra as well."
The parliament broke into enthusiastic applause. Somewhere in the press room a reporter muttered, "not so much Lagos." It was easy, and cynical, and an example of the deteriorating state of affairs in the gnarled institutions that have inherited the responsibility of preserving the Great American Republic.
The giant, heaving beast that encompasses American journalism's elite arrived here early this morning after a stop in Italy. A long look at Rome might do the beast some good – more time thinking about why the Forum is in ruins, less time perusing the wine lists and fueling the decline of our own Republic which, while far from ancient, looks substantially long in the tooth from the box seats in Accra.
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