Telling The Story

If you follow the Telling The Story podcast, you have heard several guests describe the process of covering a huge story. But I have never interviewed a guest who had to cover such a story while dealing with the massive personal tragedy it brought. Everyone at KOMO-TV went through it last March, when the station's helicopter crashed in downtown Seattle, killing photographer Bill Strothman and pilot Gary Pfitzner. The journalists and employees in the KOMO newsroom suddenly needed to bring the news of a major story while processing their own emotions. Katie Stern had worked at KOMO for nearly a decade when the crash occurred. She sprung into action and spent the morning as the roving photographer, collecting B-roll and gathering interviews around the scene; then she set up for live shots with reporter Denise Whitaker. All the while, she fought back tears and, she says, at one point could not keep a steady shot because her hands were trembling. Stern is my guest on this episode of the Telling The Story podcast.