Friday, September 14, 2007

New Beginnings

No one can ever say a newsroom lacks heart.

Sure, it's a salty place where four-letter-words are tossed out like pitches at the batting cage. And the humor in the morning meeting can touch on anything from the latest homicide victim to the most recent sex offender arrest.

Gallows humor and crass language is nothing new in the environment dictated by deadlines and hot news tips.

But walk into any newsroom and you'll enter a sort of brotherhood unlike any other. We fight like brothers and sisters but we love like family, too. Every day dishes up a new crisis, and so our bonds grow stronger as we we walk through the fire together.

We celebrate each other's new marriages and new babies. We dish about the fracas of family life and we share last night's leftovers. We trade joke emails and gossip about co-workers. We play ball together and meet up for drinks.

Today the Local 12 family said goodbye to one of our own. The anchor of my newscast, Dayna Eubanks, is leaving Cincinnati for an untold adventure. She helped launch the city's only 4 pm newscast over 10 years ago and has been a worthy adversary for that other lady who has a show in the same time slot.

We sent Dayna off with cake (four kinds including pumpkin cheesecake!) flowers and the punchline parting gift - a copy of the Rivers of Rage documentary produced by the station many years ago.

The goodbye was complete with kind words, a few tears and a rousing applause from a team of co-workers sad to send off such a talented journalist.

I remember when I came to Local 12 two and a half years ago. I was so intimidated by this crew. I came from a last place shop and so I was more than fearful by this top notch, number one newsroom in a market twice as big.

But these people welcomed me. They groomed me and helped me grow into my role, and I've come to love them all.

I can only imagine how hard it would be to say goodbye if I had 14 years under my belt at the Tall 12.

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