How well do you know your neighbors?

This morning, the entire country is buzzing with the news that three women, missing for more than 10 years were found alive inside a Cleveland house.

As pictures of the house came out – it looks like a typical urban neighborhood, with houses lining the street, neighbors walking around, etc.

The man arrested for the crime was well-known in the neighborhood, according to Charles Ramsey, who rescued the women:

“Yeah, we all knew him!”

Here’s that interview:

So that got us thinking: how well do you know your neighbors?

I’ve lived in several different places in recent years, and honestly, there were times I wouldn’t know my neighbors if they walked down the street past me.

Is that a problem? Should we know our neighbors better?

One Daily Item newser says of his/her neighbors:

I am 75 percent sure that no one is doing anything illegal. True monsters are people and you just don’t know where they live.

Very true.

What do you think? How well do you know your neighbors?

Links to latest and best bombing suspect manhunt news

This morning we’ve all been glued to social media and the news waiting for more word coming out about the Boston Marathon bombing suspects and the chaos that seemed to erupt overnight.

There’s so much happening at a rapid pace, it seems impossible to catch up.

But here’s a list of some live coverage that seems to provide good background as well as up-to-the-minute updates that will keep you informed. It’s where I’m getting my info, frankly:

• Believe it or not, but TMZ has great coverage as well as a news livestream. TMZ has really gone from gossip to news in recent years, and I think they’ve done a good job.
• The New York Times has a good liveblog set up detailing the latest updates. They also have good links to things like the photo essay of the dead suspect taken at a boxing practice.
• The Boston Globe has a good timeline set up to let you know what happened overnight. Since most of us woke up after much of this took place, it’s very handy.
• Once you get that background info, Slate.com has some very good, nuanced coverage, talking about some of the things mainstream places don’t cover right away.
• As always, Twitter has good info constantly coming in. As always, verification is key, but in situations like this, it’s the best source and bad information is often quickly fact-checked.

Let me know what else you come across, and keep emergency responders in your thoughts.

‘After Deadline’ comes alive once more!

Yesterday, we at the Daily Item re-launched an old favorite: the daily video segment known as “Daily Item After Deadline.”

It stars reporters Francis Scarcella and Rick Dandes. I’m the executive producer.

It kind of a twist on the “newsroom reveals its budget for the next day” trend.

Here’s where you can watch the first episode.

The daily segment will feature all of the day’s major headlines, as well as include some cool features like special guests, on-the-street reporting and weather segments as time goes on.

It will be posted at dailyitem.com each day at around 5 to 6 p.m., depending on how the day’s going – for example today it was up after 6, wince it was a super busy day in the newsroom.

Hopefully you’ll be tuning in each day, and we’d love to hear from you what you think and would like to see! Let us know on our Facebook page!

Below are some still shots from behind-the-scenes of the first day of production, showing Francis, Rick and Dave Hilliard working the camera:

Roof Reporting

We had some fun yesterday in search of a story.

Rob and Francis were on the roof to get some shots and have a little fun.

Here’s some photos to show just what you have to do sometimes to get it right.

Story goes Facebook viral

If there’s one thing I know about the news, it’s that people love restaurant news – what’s opening, what’s closing, what’s even thinking about opening a new location.

And now with social media, it’s even easier to get people the news they’re dying to know about.

Take, for example, a story that broke this week, that Texas Roadhouse is planning to take over the former Ruby Tuesday site in Hummels Wharf. I posted the story on Facebook, and it exploded. It got something like 150 likes.

But that’s not the most impressive stat.

Facebook metrics tracks a stat that indicates how many “shares” a story has. It shares this data on your newsfeed when you like a page to give you an idea of what people with similar interests are talking about. If there’s a really exciting story, sometimes it will have 200 shares.

Here’s the stats that popped up on my newsfeed Friday:

847?! Amazing!

Just goes to show you – sometimes it’s not the investigative, hard-hitting news people want to read…..it’s just as simple as checking zoning applications.

 

Who won the Daily Item newsroom Super Bowl challenge?

Because we’re always up for a challenge, the Daily Item newsroom decided to get in on the Super Bowl fun and we all picked scores for the Super Bowl to see who could get closest.

Here are the results:

Only two of us picked Baltimore as the winner: editor Dave Hilliard and photographer Rob Inglis.

Here’s where the decision gets tough.

Both picked the three-point spread: Rob had 24-21, Dave had 27-24.

So who’s the winner?

I have to give the edge, in a squeaker, to Dave, who picked the slightly higher score.

So, congrats Dave – bragging rights are yours until next year!

The smells of the job

When some people think back on an event, they remember the images, sounds or voices of a scene. For me, it’s the smells -  I most often remember my stories based on smells.

Hear me out.

Yesterday, I was on the scene of a house fire as friends and family began to clean up. The rain was still falling from the remnants of Sandy – whose winds apparently helped spread the flames of the fire.

Here’s what the scene looked like when myself and Daily Item photographer Rob Inglis arrived:

What struck me first was the smell. It was a charred wood smell, mixed with a pungent barn smell from the family’s barn across the street.

It’s these smells that stick with you – you get them in your nose and you can smell them for days afterward.

For example, about a month ago, I was on the scene of an accident which happened to be near where a deer carcass was laying. I walked around with the roadkill deer smell in my nostrils for about a week afterward. I couldn’t get it out of my head.

Even now, when I smell that roadkill-ish, garbage smell, I think right back to that accident scene.

What takes you back to certain memories? Are you a smeller too?