The Daily Nightly : Notes from the field

What was left to happen?

Sam Singal — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:27:00 GMT

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.

Unexpected wake up call

Sam Singal — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 02:23:00 GMT

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. Like the young lieutenant I met today -- we quickly established the fact that we'd been in Iraq at the same time. Then he re-counted for me his decision to avoid going on patrol with his unit one day, at the height of the fighting, because he had come off a double shift and was too tired. Everyone in his platoon was killed that day.

Then there was the major we met today. Tonight she told me that her 5-year-old son tried to chase her down the jetway when she left for this last deployment, five months ago. She says she video chats with her husband and son once a week. Their system for counting down the days until Mommy comes home? She orders a certain number of custom-printed M&Ms containing messages like "I love you" and "Mommy misses you." Her son is allowed to eat one M&M a day until they're all gone. On the day the M&M bowl is finally empty... well, that's the day when Mommy comes back down that jetway. The major loves her job, and like so many of the people you meet in this God-forsaken valley of rocks and dust and rusting Russian tanks, she says she wouldn't want to be anywhere else. And she means it. She loves her family, and she loves the 82nd Airborne.

You know how they say during the World Series games, "We'd like to welcome all those watching at all U. S. military installations around the world"? It sure is weird to hear them say that while you're sitting on your bunk inside a shipping container at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.

I hope you can join us for our broadcasts from here all week.

See Brian Williams' reporting from Afghanistan here. See photos from his trip to Afghanistan here.

Not a guitar hero story

Ian Sager — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 21:55:00 GMT

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.

We did, and it was fascinating of course. But it was the company's solution to the economic crisis, the same solution employed by CF's great-grandfather during the Great Depression, that triggered my memories in that special way. The solution – with the average guitar costing $2-3,000 and a few special works of art going for as much as $100,000, not the kind of numbers that'll deliver you from a recession, especially when your product is the quintessential discretionary expense – Martin decided to make a cheap guitar. Cheap by comparison, hundreds, not thousands of dollars. No inlays, or fancy finishes, just good solid construction out of those same find wood.

VIDEO:Family guitar business keeps finances in tune

Walking through the part of the plant where the new line was being produced, as painstakingly as ever, it happened for me. I remembered my first guitar, in college, and could hear the songs I'd played (not all that expertly, I should say) as I sang my son to sleep many nights. I'd had a Puerto Rican friend then who'd taught me some Spanish guitar, Maleguena and some of the riffs Jose Feliciano was then popularizing, and the rest of what I played was that odd simplistic mix of familiar favorites – House of the Rising Sun, Girl from Ipanema, Puff the Magic Dragon, a few dozen others. As a kid I'd played classical piano but was never a natural musician, it was always hard work, mastering a score and playing it well enough to allow others to listen. But the guitar, while difficult, was all about pleasure, playing the instrument, seeing its effect on my toddler son.

So of course, before I left the CF Martin factory floor, I bought one of their Series 1 guitars.

How could I not? Even as it was being tuned and inspected for a final time and placed in its case, I could hear all those songs and longed to play them again, I could see my son's face and the color of his bedroom walls.

And for those moments I wasn't a reporter on a story, but simply someone who remembered something special and who had a chance to revisit that memory again.

Video: The guitar by which all others are measured

The day I won the Nobel Peace Prize

Sam Go — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:19:00 GMT

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.

After Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s startling announcement a year earlier that he would talk peace with Israel, it became NBC Cairo duty to keep a reporter and camera team with Sadat everywhere he went. I knew this urgent message meant hurry and get to the president for his reaction to the award.

I gathered NBC correspondent David Burrington and the camera crew and told them the news. “I just won the Noble Peace Prize and we need to get Sadat’s reaction.”

At the presidential palace, we learned Sadat was surprised too! He told Burrington he was honored but the timing was not good. At that moment talks with Israel were stalled and there was Arab world and domestic opposition to peace. Sadat even questioned why he had to share the prize with Israeli Prime Minister Manachem Begin. Our report from Cairo was the lead story on Nightly News with John Chancellor that night.

On December 10, 1978, President Sadat accepted the Nobel Prize alongside Prime Minister Begin. Sadat spoke of breaking with the past and stepping forward into a new age.

“I am convinced,” Sadat said at the Oslo ceremony, “ that we owe it to this generation and the generations to come, not to leave a stone unturned in our pursuit of peace. The ideal is the greatest one in the history of man, and we have accepted the challenge to translate it from a cherished hope into a living reality, and to win through vision and imagination, the hearts and minds of our peoples and enable them to look beyond the unhappy past.”

A few weeks later Sadat took a respite on board the presidential yacht ‘Al-Houriya ‘ in the Suez Canal. He often took time alone to think and focus before he made decisions.

Journalists were told there would be a few days of no news. Still our New York editors insisted we go. There wasn’t much room on the ship so the foreign press assembled a ‘pool’ to accompany the president, ‘just-in-case.’

For three days on the ship we never saw the president. There was nothing for us to do but sunbathe, read, and play cards. We begged the press spokesman for an audience and finally Sadat agreed. On day four, there would be a ‘family’ photo but under no circumstances were we to ask ‘news’ questions.

President Mohammad Anwar Sadat met us on deck. He was wearing admiral dress whites with the highest honors displayed on his chest. With tremendous poise and dignity he invited us all to stand for the photo. He knew our names and he thanked each of the journalists for covering him everyday and relaying his message of peace to the world.

Photo: The foreign press pool aboard the Al-Houriya in Suez Canal December 1978
Top left to right : Mohammad Gohar (NBC), Bill Foley (AP), Mike Mosher (NBC) , President Anwar Sadat , Doreen Kays (ABC), Rick Hull (ABC), Ali Ashmawy (ABC), Mike Lee (CBS) ; Bottom : Ali Abed (NBC) , Magna (UPI)

Then to our surprise he presented each of us with a medal… it was the Nobel Peace Prize 1978, stamped in Arabic, ‘The Hero of Peace Anwar Sadat.’ It was a small replica, too small to include Begin or Mosher but such an honor to receive. I’ll always treasure my Nobel Peace Prize.

Campground homes

Sam Singal — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 20:20:00 GMT

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.

Video: Amid tough times, families call campgrounds home

The school bus makes a daily pick-up at the Timberline Campground.

2 year old Zayin Renault shares this tent and camper with his parents and three older brothers

Galveston revisited

Ian Sager — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 12:17:00 GMT

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.

I must have dozed off during the stillness of the storm's eye, because I next remember being jolted awake by what sounded like someone trying to force open the door. It turned out be a police officer banging his flashlight against it, calling for everyone to head the lobby. The storm's dirty side was on us. "If you're not going downstairs, write your social security number on your arm," he warned. That will get you down 15 flights in record time.

It's funny how vividly I remember this but can't recall dinner last night. So in Galveston this week, it wasn't surprising to hear detailed accounts from others who, for whatever reason, spent last September 12th riding out the storm. It's been a long road back for so many on the island, a year spent rebuilding homes and lives.

Video: Slow recovery marks Ike anniversary

Waves pound Galveston's seawall, 10 hours before Ike made landfall

Debris from the Gulf litters the seawall, the morning after the storm

A modern day ghost town

Ian Sager — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 19:45:00 GMT

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.

By any accounting, Picher has been dying a slow death for years. Now, even those who remain acknowledge the ink is drying on the obituary of their beloved but tainted town.

Video: Mining leaves Midwest town toxic, tainted

Web only video: Resident on growing up in 'tainted town'

Picher, Oklahoma in 1929

Letters spray painted on almost every home and business mean "to be condemned"

A turf war at sea

Ian Sager — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 19:49:00 GMT

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. In a time of economic hardship everywhere, it's easy to understand their desire for relief, but is it fair? The very question has resulted in a rare display of violence on the island. With a community worried its legacy is on the line, we'll take a closer look at the issue as we travel to Matinicus tonight on Nightly News.

Click here to watch the report that aired on Nightly News.

Fifth generation Lobsterman Clayton Philbrook and NBC's Janet Shamlian in Matinicus, Maine

Part of the day's catch in the waters just off Matinicus.

Peace and safety for inner city kids

Daily Nightly Editor — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 16:00:00 GMT

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.

Annoni's idea of "camp" however goes a bit further than what I used to do. He teaches sixth grade at a public school. One summer he decided to take a few of his students with him when he went fishing, rafting, or boating. The kids were so excited and inspired by those trips that Annoni turned it into a camp. But his camp is year-round, and the focus is on academics, hence the name "Camp Compass Academy."

There's something else you should know about Annoni. He's very open about it. He grew up in a troubled home and was at times the victim of child abuse. He tells the story of how he used to run out of the house to the nearby woods to chase squirrels or other "critters." That's how he found peace and safety. And that's how his love affair with the great outdoors came to be.

One of the most unusual aspects of Annoni's camp is what's perhaps its biggest reward for academic achievement and advancing through the program over the course of a number of years. That reward is the hunting trips. Trips across the country in pursuit of deer, pheasant, and other small game. His "camp classroom " is adorned with some of the trophies they've bagged. Before anyone can go hunting, there's extensive training about how to handle guns.

To tell Annoni's story, we spent part of day with him and a group of students at a shooting range. Annoni freely admits a number of people, including potential donors to this non-profit, are turned off or worse by the fact that he's teaching inner city kids how to use guns. There's more about this in the Nightly News piece. The bottom line is that Annoni insists he's teaching kids to have a healthy respect for weapons. And the camp is about much more than hunting. They're "tools," he says, like fishing rods and other outdoor gear that he uses to change kids lives for the better.

He's gotten results. High grades and graduation rates. Students heading off to college who otherwise probably wouldn't. Kids who say the "Camp" has helped them stay out of trouble. At another level, Annoni says he's teaching life skills like discipline, patience and self-esteem. Though admittingly, depending on where you come from, you might find him and some of his methods a bit unconventional.

More information on Camp Compass Academy
http://www.campcompass.org/

Obama speaks, Ghana reacts (without cynicism)

Ian Sager — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 19:55:00 GMT

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.

Mara Schiavocampo has been in Ghana since Monday, preparing for, and covering Mr. Obama's trip for NBC News. She and a colleague, Anthony Galloway, are "digital journalists." What that means is they use cutting-edge equipment to turn stories on a dime. They file for the network and cable news programs, of course, but they live and breathe on the Internet. They are the new wave of journalism.

As the press corps descended on Accra today with backpacks full of preconceived notions, the striking thing about Mara's take on things was her utter lack of cynicism. Arguably, that freshness is grounded in her engagement with new institutions. She sees hope and possibility in 21^st century American journalism, exactly the entrepreneurial spirit Obama endorsed today.

Mara had assembled a collection of the local papers, with headlines that suggested the media in Ghana are less aggressive – and implicitly less competent – than American reporters and editors, producers and correspondents.

"AKWAABA (Welcome), PRESIDENT OBAMA.....Help us stop cyber fraud," a headline shouted from one front page. Another simply said: "Our Day of Pride." But Mara had gone beyond the headlines this week. She said this should not be interpreted as evidence of a weak, compliant media culture. The reality is quite the opposite, she said.

Radio talk show hosts here engage listeners in intelligent debate. Serious public affairs programs are popular and lengthy. Commercial considerations don't drive the mediation of public discourse.

"It's not a sound bite culture like ours," Mara said. Informed reporters ask questions intent upon eliciting information. "Gotcha" journalism hasn't infected the press here to the extent it has in older cultures, where the old institutions are constantly transmitting perilous signals of serious weakness.