Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things ...
Earlier this week, I had the full intention of writing an entire blog entry about the shuttle launch I went to Tuesday, but then …
Unbeknownst to those of us in the newsroom on the fifth floor, The Herald was becoming part of that day’s top story, but news like this travels fast. Within a few minutes, you could see a few workers walking around hurriedly. One of them stopped by the sports department and said something softly to our copy desk chief.
“Art Teele just committed suicide in our lobby?”
It was shocking news to be sure, but the name didn’t mean much to me in that moment. Others seemed to know who it was immediately—perhaps a Herald employee? But it only took a few minutes for the story for the story to reach the television news desk, and it was clear that this was no simple Herald employee.
Art Teele, former city commissioner of Miami. Art Teele, indicted just two weeks before on fraud conspiracy and money laundering. Art Teele, the subject off an article from the Miami New Times that morning that detailed his alleged dealings with drugs and prostitutes.
Teele kills self in Herald lobby
Breaking news situations in newsrooms are an interesting phenomenon. Being news people, we are all interested and want to watch the news as it comes. But the newspaper’s deadline does not wait, and especially for those of us in sports and other sections who wouldn’t be directly affected by the coverage, our work just has to continue.
Photos were uploaded on our system soon after from our photographer who was at the scene, and some were asked to weigh in on which would be fit for the front page. Some weren’t fit to appear anywhere.
Perhaps it disturbed me a little that the pictures didn’t disturb me much at first glance. I certainly have seen things much more graphic in the movies. But the cameras down there weren’t shooting a movie. The pool of blood was real as was the man lying in it just 60 or so feet beneath my feet. And when you have to go through that whole thought process just to be disturbed by what you’re looking at, you can’t help but question just how callous you’ve become.
Wednesday was a far cry from Tuesday. Wednesday saw a man who likely felt he had only one thing left he could control, a man who had run out of hope. Tuesday, thousands converged on Titusville and Cape Canaveral filled with hope. At 10:39 a.m., we were all rewarded with the launch of the first space shuttle since Feb. 1, 2003, when the shuttle Columbia blew up over Texas. It was quite a reward, a good thing too, considering what some of us did to be able to see it.
Titusville is about halfway up the state—a solid 3.5-hour drive from Miami. I had to work Monday night until 12:45, and since driving home to sleep a couple of hours would have added 1.5 hours to the round trip, I left straight from work. I don’t normally go to bed until between 2 and 3 a.m. anyway, so staying up that late wasn’t unusual.
The plan was to arrive in Titusville, sleep a few hours and then watch the launch. However, when I arrived at Space View Park at 4:45 a.m., a few people had already begun staking out their front row seats, so I decided to join them. Space View Park is about as close as you can get for an unobstructed view of the launch unless you are actually on Kennedy Space Center property. Even at 10 miles away, I could see the launch pad all lit up in the darkness, as I’m sure they were making preparations even at that hour.
I had hoped to doze a bit while sitting by the water’s edge in the darkness, but as more people started to arrive that became impossible. People started to fill in around me, and by the time the sun began to rise, most of the front row seats had gone.
People kept arriving until launch time, and some estimates said that there were 1,000 some odd people at the park—most of which were behind me and the others that had arrived early, early. There were photographers, videographers and reporters all over the place interviewing some of the people around me. As it got hotter, people began to get testy, arguing about who had moved over into whose spot and whatnot. But as the countdown started, all of that stopped, as people alternated between counting down with the clock holding their breaths in hopes that nothing would go wrong.
It happened a lot more quickly than I had imagined or had seen in movies about launches. And because light travels much more quickly than sound, we didn’t hear the blast until almost a minute after it happened.
I didn’t have much time to hang around. After a few minutes, the shuttle looked like nothing more than a star, and I had to leave. After all, I was due back at The Herald to work that night. It took a long time to get out of Titusville, and by noon I really began to feel the effects of staying up all night. But I made it back home just in time to take a shower, make a dinner, and leave again to make it to work just in time.
Work that night wasn’t as bad as I had expected. I wasn’t so much sleepy as I was just plain worn out. Of course, I it was one of those nights that I couldn’t get off early, so I worked past 1 a.m. But I got home well enough and got to sleep—40 hours after I had last woken up. But it was worth it. It was worth it to see so many people collectively excited and hopeful as half a million gallons on liquid hydrogen fuel blasted a $2 million project into space. It was worth it to be a part of that story only a day before I was part of a completely different story that no one would wish to be a part of.
Unbeknownst to those of us in the newsroom on the fifth floor, The Herald was becoming part of that day’s top story, but news like this travels fast. Within a few minutes, you could see a few workers walking around hurriedly. One of them stopped by the sports department and said something softly to our copy desk chief.
“Art Teele just committed suicide in our lobby?”
It was shocking news to be sure, but the name didn’t mean much to me in that moment. Others seemed to know who it was immediately—perhaps a Herald employee? But it only took a few minutes for the story for the story to reach the television news desk, and it was clear that this was no simple Herald employee.
Art Teele, former city commissioner of Miami. Art Teele, indicted just two weeks before on fraud conspiracy and money laundering. Art Teele, the subject off an article from the Miami New Times that morning that detailed his alleged dealings with drugs and prostitutes.
Teele kills self in Herald lobby
Breaking news situations in newsrooms are an interesting phenomenon. Being news people, we are all interested and want to watch the news as it comes. But the newspaper’s deadline does not wait, and especially for those of us in sports and other sections who wouldn’t be directly affected by the coverage, our work just has to continue.
Photos were uploaded on our system soon after from our photographer who was at the scene, and some were asked to weigh in on which would be fit for the front page. Some weren’t fit to appear anywhere.
Perhaps it disturbed me a little that the pictures didn’t disturb me much at first glance. I certainly have seen things much more graphic in the movies. But the cameras down there weren’t shooting a movie. The pool of blood was real as was the man lying in it just 60 or so feet beneath my feet. And when you have to go through that whole thought process just to be disturbed by what you’re looking at, you can’t help but question just how callous you’ve become.
Wednesday was a far cry from Tuesday. Wednesday saw a man who likely felt he had only one thing left he could control, a man who had run out of hope. Tuesday, thousands converged on Titusville and Cape Canaveral filled with hope. At 10:39 a.m., we were all rewarded with the launch of the first space shuttle since Feb. 1, 2003, when the shuttle Columbia blew up over Texas. It was quite a reward, a good thing too, considering what some of us did to be able to see it.
Titusville is about halfway up the state—a solid 3.5-hour drive from Miami. I had to work Monday night until 12:45, and since driving home to sleep a couple of hours would have added 1.5 hours to the round trip, I left straight from work. I don’t normally go to bed until between 2 and 3 a.m. anyway, so staying up that late wasn’t unusual.
The plan was to arrive in Titusville, sleep a few hours and then watch the launch. However, when I arrived at Space View Park at 4:45 a.m., a few people had already begun staking out their front row seats, so I decided to join them. Space View Park is about as close as you can get for an unobstructed view of the launch unless you are actually on Kennedy Space Center property. Even at 10 miles away, I could see the launch pad all lit up in the darkness, as I’m sure they were making preparations even at that hour.
I had hoped to doze a bit while sitting by the water’s edge in the darkness, but as more people started to arrive that became impossible. People started to fill in around me, and by the time the sun began to rise, most of the front row seats had gone.
People kept arriving until launch time, and some estimates said that there were 1,000 some odd people at the park—most of which were behind me and the others that had arrived early, early. There were photographers, videographers and reporters all over the place interviewing some of the people around me. As it got hotter, people began to get testy, arguing about who had moved over into whose spot and whatnot. But as the countdown started, all of that stopped, as people alternated between counting down with the clock holding their breaths in hopes that nothing would go wrong.
It happened a lot more quickly than I had imagined or had seen in movies about launches. And because light travels much more quickly than sound, we didn’t hear the blast until almost a minute after it happened.
I didn’t have much time to hang around. After a few minutes, the shuttle looked like nothing more than a star, and I had to leave. After all, I was due back at The Herald to work that night. It took a long time to get out of Titusville, and by noon I really began to feel the effects of staying up all night. But I made it back home just in time to take a shower, make a dinner, and leave again to make it to work just in time.
Work that night wasn’t as bad as I had expected. I wasn’t so much sleepy as I was just plain worn out. Of course, I it was one of those nights that I couldn’t get off early, so I worked past 1 a.m. But I got home well enough and got to sleep—40 hours after I had last woken up. But it was worth it. It was worth it to see so many people collectively excited and hopeful as half a million gallons on liquid hydrogen fuel blasted a $2 million project into space. It was worth it to be a part of that story only a day before I was part of a completely different story that no one would wish to be a part of.
posted by Jonathan at
1:54 AM
4 Comments:
I was going e-mail to see if you were around when this happened. Wild.
By
Old Pybus, at 3:31 PM, July 31, 2005
I guess those late nights at the Optimist came in handy this week ... not many people can fully function with little-to-no sleep like the Optimist staff can.
By
Jaci, at 3:41 PM, July 31, 2005
Jon, I don't necessarily think that it is Tyler or Abilene at the the center of the News Universe. I am beginning to think that you are the center of that cosmology my friend. Don't let it go to your head.
By
Justin, at 9:19 AM, August 01, 2005
Hey, I did e-mail you about this, a couple of minutes after it was posted on CNN.com. Glad you're alright and got to witness history - from both ends of the spectrum. And Jaci, I think you're right - the conditioning we get on the third floor of Don Morris prepares us for anything.
By
Sarah, at 1:25 PM, August 01, 2005
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