It has been a tough few weeks when it comes to news
stories I’ve covered.
It started with the Sheriff Sullivan story. No matter how
I look at it, I feel badly for all involved. Think of the Sullivan’s family.
They must be embarrassed.
The young men who are meth addicts and interacted with
Sullivan can’t have easy lives. I’ve been able to get know several of the men. They
are much like the rest of us. They worry about the same things as all of us. They
wanted a place to spend Christmas. They worried about buying gifts for the
people they love. They want to make New Year’s resolutions.
If you can’t tell, I’m sick. And by sick, I mean really
sick. But it’s also the holiday season. That means calling in sick to work is impossible.
There’s just no one else to do the work.
I wasn’t planning to be on TV Tuesday. After all, I sounded
terrible. But my news director thought we should give it a try. Here’s the
result. All I hoped for with every word was that my voice didn’t quit. It had
been doing that for most of the day after every few words.
I saved up all day to be able to say this much clearly.
John is an 88-year-old Denver man who lives by himself.
He received a call Nov. 18 from his authorities in Spain who told him his grandson
was in jail. His grandson has committed an indiscretion and needed money.
The authorities allowed John’s grandson say a few words
over the phone.
“Hi Grandpa,” said a voice on the other line.
Then the authorities demanded John wire them $24,000.
John went to his bank account and did just that. No one at his bank questioned
the odd transfer.
As it turns out, John’s grandson is safe in Boulder with
his family. He hasn’t traveled to Spain. It was a scam.
When I interviewed the Wiley family about meeting Pat Sullivan, I extended an opportunity for them to write directly to our viewers. I offered to post it on my blog. Here is what Katherine Wiley wrote:
If there are families out there who for a moment may think that Mr. Sullivan might have had an untoward relationship with their child, I implore them to please, please sit down and talk to their children about this in a loving and supportive way.
And it’s not because roads were bad, they weren’t.
We make the 40-minute commute from 9NEWS to Highlands Ranch.
When we tried to unlock the back of the SUV to get out our camera, tripod, TV
lights, etc., the door wouldn’t open.
You might remember a while back when I did a story on a roofing company who (accidently) started replacing a roof on the wrong house.
In our report, the business owner promised he would take care of the homeowner who came home to find his shingles coming off his house. (The homeowner is an employee of 9NEWS who works in our production and engineering departments.)
It's not the best place to spend Thanksgiving, but the airport will do. Everyone is in a pretty good mood. And if you want to go far, far away... it's really your only option. The only turkey I've had so far today is the single slice of lunch meat that came on my snack plate.
I'm just relaxing and passing the time.
Apparently other people had the same idea.
Happy Thanksgiving. Despite what some tweeters say, I enjoy seeing everyone's Thanksgiving dinners.
You’ll see an interesting clip of me on camera in tonight’s
story. We call a taped clip of a reporter standing and taking a “standup.”
I’m in the basement of 9NEWS talking about the team of
police officers who bust car thieves. What better place to do that than in our
parking garage on the lower level?
I wanted the standup to look different so we moved a big
HD monitor downstairs. We attached a computer to it so we could play clips of
police busting bad guys as I talk.
It helped give the standup a stronger feel. Here’s a
behind the scene picture.
What you won’t see on TV are the lights, cords and camera
we used to make this look as good as possible.
You also won’t see that we shoot about 20 versions of
this standup so we can choose the very best one.
Sometimes I stumbled over my words. Other times our
photographer backed into a light jarring the shot.
I went simple this year and only did two trees and then up around my porch. But I'm still excited to see what it looks like what's the sun goes down.
Electronic geeks like me will understand: This year is going to be great. I'm putting all of my Christmas lights on automatic timers so I don't even have to touch them.
I also decided that I was going to put up my Christmas tree in the house. It seemed like a good time to do it. Now I won't be rushed in December.
Here a couple of pictures inside. Oh and there's a picture of my dog. As you can tell he was useless.
Luckily the viewer who called to alert us about this knows not to fall for it.
The viewer said she received a call around 7 a.m. from someone named “Mr. Benjamin" at Publisher’s Clearing House and that she won a car and some money.
They told her, she says, that she needed to get a money order for $285 and they would call her back at 9 a.m. Her caller ID picked up the number: 303-654-8791.
Hello from 70 MPH as we race back to the television station after a long day. We don't have a breaking story, we're just ready to be home.
I left this morning hoping to interview a prisoner in Trinidad. He'd said yes, but we didn't have permission from the prison. We decided to head south in hopes that we would get a yes or no answer within an hour.
No word when we reached Colorado Springs. No word when we reached Pueblo.
I hoped we weren't driving all the way there only to get no interview. We reached Walsenburg and then Trinidad. ...still nothing.
I hate wasting time and it appeared that's just what we had done. I'd tweeted and Facebooked about the dilemma all morning. Social media users told me to stay positive, but I thought they were wrong. After all, how do you get inside a prison with a camera on the spur of the moment?
Each year we look forward to the day we make an immediateimpact on those who aren’t as fortunate as us.
What you don’t see in these pictures is how at 11:30 we discovered we had no on air people to be live during our noon to 1 p.m. broadcast.
That left Jeremy, Corey, Marty and myself with a little over time. It turned out to be a blessing because we had so much fun. It gave us time to interview the many, many volunteers who give their time unloading and sorting boxes.
Why would someone give up control of their Twitter account?
Of course I know people do it, but it seems like a bad idea. Ashton Kutcher has
eight million followers because it’s him behind the keyboard. I don’t
particularly love him, yet I follow his tweets because I’m interested in what
someone as high profile as him really thinks.
Now it feels like I’ll be getting
Tweets the quality of a TV dinner when I wanted a steak.
The state Legislative Audit Committee didn’t
vote to do an audit of online schools, but I’m still proud that our 9Wants to Know
investigation got people talking.
We teamed with I-NEWS, a group of independent investigative
journalists in Colorado. We showed some concerning stats about learning at
online schools verses traditional schools.
We showed your elected officials what we found and they hoped an audit would dig deeper. That won't be happening after votes today that were as partisan as they get.
Journalists don’t take sides, but we do search for
information.
It seems to me that doing the audit of online schools would
have provided more information. If the audit turned up nothing, then no action would
have needed to be taken to fix anything.
Taxpayer dollars are precious, though.
If the audit turned up problems, wouldn’t you want to know
about them? Wouldn’t you want to have an opportunity to debate solutions?
The dates everyone has been waiting for... Colorado ski area opening dates:
(This list is according to Ashton Altieri, 9NEWS meteorologist. Check www.9news.com later today for our complete ski information.)
Most of us aren’t likely to fall for something such as this,
but sometimes our loved ones in different age groups do. It breaks my heart
each time a senior cries on the phone to me because he or she has lost a few
thousand dollars.
Here’s the latest warning from the 18th Judicial
District Attorney’s Office.
A local Realtor asked me to look into a letter he says
several of his clients received from ACT claiming homeowners have a “scheduled
interest reduction option on your mortgage.”
The letter asks homeowners to call an 800-number. I
called it myself to see what the pitch is.
Steve told me I could pay off my mortgage much faster
using their personal finance software which he said costs about $100 to set up
and about $30 each month, no contract. He told me his company Accelerated Cash
Flow Technology, www.actdebtfree.com
and Accelerate Equity and Development have a good rating with the Better Business Bureau in Salt Lake City.
We got published. In this new age of media, we don't just do television stories. We have often written for The Denver Post, but now we got printed in another paper.
We are excited. This type of coverage let's 9NEWS help even more people.
(In case you are wondering... Many people sided with the Sheriff after this story.)
Not every story generates leads months after I run it, but the investigation into Jim Burg and Superior Discount Coins is different.
Months after our story detailing victims’ claims that Jim Burg took their retirement money to invest in gold, victims say they never received the gold coins they were promised.
Every couple of weeks, I get an email from a new person claiming to be a victim.
Police ensure me they are working on this case. I understand why victims are frustrated with the slow pace of justice.
**I wrote this blog ahead of tonight's investigation. STORY AIRS TUESDAY ON 9NEWS AT 10. WASHINGTON COUNTY – The family of an elderly man, who died in his house after originally refusing medical help for weeks prior, blames the county sheriff for not following a judge’s order to take the man to the hospital, 9Wants to Know reports.
Clarence Vogl resting peacefully at his house.
We took this picture 90 minutes before he died.
I sat in Clarence Vogl’s living room watching his daughters softly holding his hands. They were so proud of their father. It reminded me of my grandfather, Orrin Stransky. He died recently too.
While there was no controversy surrounding his death, he and Clarence Vogl had so much in common even if they never met.
Both men were strong and stubborn, and caring.
Clarence Vogl was still driving a tractor when he turned 90.
We wondered whether the clerk in our Lottery story was going to be honest when we asked her to check our scratch lottery ticket.
As we watched, an undercover lottery employee presented her with a mock ticket printed by the Colorado
Lottery. The ticket is printed to look and act like a real ticket when scanned by a lottery machine.
One of the clerks we feature in our story (that airs Saturday on 9NEWS after the Broncos game) was friendly and greeted us with a smile.
She also took our “winning” lottery ticket and tried to claim it the next day as her own. It would have been worth hundreds of dollars had it been real.
She ended up charged with a crime.
Here’s the video. Does she look suspicious?
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Six months after I started helping homeowners having trouble paying their home loans, the calls and emails still pour in.
Just a reminder that we put together tons of information to help those in need.
After we shared how two new homeowners in Stapleton were left holding a furniture bill for $8,000+ and had yet to receive any furniture, it’s nice to see other local companies offering to step up and help. (See our story by clicking here: http://bit.ly/nmxtHM)
BellaLu Home & Design suffered financial problems. Many customers paid up front for furniture that didn’t arrive. Store owner Jodi Zippo, to her credit, asked to sit down and face our cameras. She explained the economy was mostly to blame.
Since my story aired, the owners of Elements For Design on West Evans Avenue in Denver offered to help Jessica and Mike Goodman by giving them wholesale pricing on new furniture.
“We would love the opportunity to help make this unfortunate situation right,” Kevin Dunn & Kevin Wood told me in an email.
Breanne Mashek who owns InHabit Interior Design also offered her design services for 10% off.
What’s also nice is that neither business owner asked to have their name put on TV.
"Training day" with the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department. ...our training day. Here's the pit maneuver. Check out the last video where there was plenty of loud voices.
When you go through a foreclosure, how long does it take before you’ll be able to buy your next house? A mortgage expert sent me this document and I thought it was worth passing along.
I just got off the phone with a senior citizen who has a $4,800/mo house payment. He’s on a loan modification with a 4.75 percent interest rate.
He can't afford his payment.
He wanted me to call his mortgage lender and ask them to give him a second modification. (I told him I just couldn't make the call.) There are many people so desperate for help. I hope others realize how lucky they are.
Plenty of people can’t get ONE modification.
By the way… if you are having trouble making your payments… check out this 9NEWS.com story I put together. It has lots of inside tips and even has a downloadable packet that explains your options.
I was scooping ice cream to go along with my fresh chocolate chip cookies Sunday night (yes I cook) when I got a call from my producer telling me Osama bin Laden was dead and his body was in U.S. custody.
For the next few hours I worked the phones from my home office hoping to find people I knew who had hunted bin Laden. Luckily, one of the most accomplished people I know returned my text message immediately.
Jim checked with his boss (the Governor of Colorado) and agreed to talk to us on the phone during our live 10 p.m. newscast.
He was just as I knew he would be: well spoken and insightful.
After the news ended, I stayed up talking to other sources about how bin Laden’s capture might affect the security of Americans. We all hoped it wouldn’t.
With a few hours sleep, I was up in the morning.
Jim and I had a nine a.m. interview set where he agreed to talk more about his experience. I wanted our viewers to understand what it’s like to hunt the most wanted man on Earth.
We met at his office. He brought dozens of pictures that I used tonight at five p.m. to help tell the story.
Because the rest of the news doesn’t stop for breaking news, I still had my usual day of investigative reporting.
My other producer and I had two shoots set up for mid-morning and early afternoon.
Both went smoothly and we rushed back to the station so I could put together my interview with Jim. We had a short time to log the interview, write it, track it with my voice and edit it.
When I have busy days, I’m reminded how much I love my job.
It seems the busier the day, the more fun I have.
Now at 6:30 p.m., it’s time to relax… until something happens and we do it all over again.
Several clients of Superior Discount Coins owner and gold coin investor Jim Burg say he took tens of thousands of dollars of their retirement money and never delivered the gold coins he promised.
Some sued Jim Burg. Court records I dug up show he didn’t respond to lawsuits.
Then I discovered evidence showing Burg’s beautiful ranch in Fairplay and his home in Breckenridge have already been to the foreclosure auction. His condo San Diego condo overlooking the Padres ball park is in trouble because his HOA says he hasn’t paid dues.
Jim Burg had his chance to respond to lawsuits. He had more than two years to pay his clients.
I decided it was time to confront him and ask “Where’s the money, Jim?”
My producer and I drove to his ranch in Fairplay expecting to knock on his door. As we headed down the road leading to his property, a Porsche passed us going the opposite direction. Burg’s former clients previously told us that what he drove. We made a quick U-turn and followed it.
The Porsche wasn’t going into Fairplay, it headed to Breckenridge and traveled fast… just fast enough to lose us.
Driving through Breckenridge we spotted the Porsche and Burg in a grocery store parking lot.
He was out of his car and in the store so fast we were forced to wait for him to come out. It seemed like we waited for nearly a half hour in the snow and freezing temperatures. Neither of us had heavy jackets.
Plenty of people gathered to watch what was about to unfold.
As Burg walked out of the grocery store I started asking him questions.
He didn’t answer my questions with specifics. He pledged people would get their money, the same thing he has told his former clients for years.
He then drove away in a Porsche with temporary plates.
Since our meeting in the parking lot, I’ve left Jim Burg several phone calls, written him a letter and emailed him. He has not communicated with me at all.
Julie just called to say thank you to the good samaritan who helped out a four-legged friend last week. Julie was driving near 13th Avenue between Monroe Street and Garfield Street when she saw a car hit a Chihuahua .
Right away, she says, a good samaritan came to the dog’s rescue and took him/her to his vet to get treatment.
When Julie called me, the dog’s owner hadn’t been found.
Julie just wanted to say thank you to the man she watch stop and quickly get the dog help.
This isn’t something that would typically make the 10:00 news, but with all the struggles facing people today… it seems worth noting here.
I’d love to talk to the guy who helped out the dog.
It’s come to my attention that many thought this when you saw me Monday night offering to help viewers with their home loan modification problems.
I’ll admit, I didn’t anticipate three days into it I would be sorting through 600 e-mails and phone calls. However, I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to help even a fraction of that.
No, I can’t help everyone. We are doing our best though and I’m impressed by banks’ responses. Chase, Wells Fargo and Bank of America have all pledged to be a part of our Home Loan Lifeline series.
It’s impressive to watch the 9Wants to Know unit working frantically to put viewers in touch with the right people at banks. We got into this business to tell people’s stories and offer them a helping hand. I can’t think of a better way to do both than through this series.
Please, spread the word… we want to help. If you need a home loan lifeline or if you know someone who does, e-mail us at blowthewhistle@9NEWS.com.
Please e-mail us:
Your full name, your telephone number, your address, your city, your bank's name, the circumstances of your situation, a list of documentation you have to detail/prove the claims and a picture of the outside of your home.
I checked out the Jefferson County foreclosure auction this morning. It was my first time and there is something mesmerizingabout watching property change hands so quickly and officially.
I watched a property start at $900,000+ and go up past $1.3 million. In the end, the bank bought this property.
What property was it? I am still trying to find out. All I know is that the legal address is Lot 4, The Meadows at Westwoods Ranch.
We’re all about trying something new at 9NEWS. I was on my way to interview Carol Chambers, District Attorney for the 18th Judicial District, when I decided to open some time up for your questions in addition to mine. Tweeters and Facebookers submitted the following:
@RobGsrh said: “Ask where she stands on 2012 marijuana legalization/legislation efforts.” Anonymous said: “Ask why she wants to charge a 10 year old for arson.” (That’s the topic I was already planning to discuss.) Our own Kevin Torres took the lighter approach: “What’s your favorite movie?”
You may do EVERYTHING right and still be a victim of this frustrating and scary scam. Just listen to these people tell their stories. And keep in mind, these aren't the people who sent a dime -- yet they still pay the price.
