Our Northern Bureau

Courtney DavisWRAL News Photographer


Don Ingle wrote about his life in the Durham Bureau. I think he mentioned we have bureaus in Wilson and Fayetteville as well. They have similar construction; a building, a direct channel to the station, and a reporter/photographer team (although Mike Charbonneau is the reporter/photographer “team” in Wilson). And then we have our Northern Bureau.
On the day I took the attached pictures our “bureau” was a Cracker Barrel in Henderson, NC. The direct channel to our station (in order to get video back in time for our newscasts) is me driving back to our main station in Raleigh. And the photographer/reporter team consists of the same reporter each day, Fred Taylor, and a rotating photographer.

Each day a photographer drives up to any of a number of locations in the northern counties, Roanoke Rapids, Warrenton, Bracey, VA, etc. While up there we shoot our story and head for lunch. For us it's a working lunch. I log tape while Fred begins to write our story. Once I'm logged I hand the information over to Fred who adds it to our story. Fred & I have a great working relationship. I really feel like I'm part of the team. He listens to my input and we work together to get things done as efficiently as possible. We need that efficiency in order to get things done early in the afternoon so I can make the long drive back to Raleigh, edit, and get the story to air.

Generally Fred will voice our stories via internet/mp.3, but on the day I took these pictures the internet was not working properly. I was not able to get my story edited because I didn't his voice track. Technology is great but sometimes sitting and waiting on a hard copy of his voice is really the way to go. But it's a balancing act ... if I wait for the track I may run into traffic and that could cause me last minute editing troubles too.

At least we get lunch!