By John Carlin
WSLS10 Anchor
Published: April 4, 2008

The cell phone rang Wednesday morning.  The number showed it was work.  Figured I’d be called in early to cover some breaking crime story.  Not this time.

“Carlin, we won the Peabody.” It was Melissa Preas, our news director.  My knees weakened and my breathing got a little funny.  “You’re kidding,” was the best I could do.  I followed that with the ever popular and creative, “No way! You’re kidding.  No way! Are you kidding? Really?  OMG.”

Melissa might tell you I said them in a slightly different order, but you get the idea.

The events that led to that call are as follows:

Five o’clock producer Alison Matthiessen sits next to the fax machine.  Because it’s a TV newsroom, that fax runs constantly, and poor Alison often has the job of delivering those that are not immediately circular filed.

It is no surprise, then, that she paid little attention to what she was putting on the news directors’ desk with an over-the-shoulder, “looks like we won some award.”

I should back up a few months here to January when chief photographer Tim Hess and I began the annual tedious task of sifting through the previous year’s coverage to enter the various awards contests.  We knew Virginia Tech would dominate our entries this year and decided to focus our efforts on categories that lent themselves to our coverage during the first few days, when we were on the air almost constantly with updates.

Like most stations, we enter our work for consideration by RTNDA for the Edward R. Murrow Awards.  We also enter the Emmys, The Virginia Association of Broadcasters and the Virginia Associated Press awards. 

This year, because the events of April 16 at Virginia Tech were of such magnitude, I asked Melissa if we could enter the Peabodys.  She now tells me she thought I was crazy.  Jerry Caldwell, our assistant news director and a significant player in the process of putting these entries together said he didn’t think it was worth even, “taking the time to fill out the application.”

I can hear them laughing in the office now.  “Did you hear what Carlin is doing?  Yeah, he spent a whole day preparing a Peabody entry.  Guess he’s trying to get out of street reporting.” (Maybe I was.)

Despite the odds, to their credit, they gave us the green light.  So Tim and I sifted through the hours and hours of tape. 

Neither of us had seen the taped coverage before.  We had lived it last April, but not watched it.  It was like living the tragedy all over again. 

Both of us left here several days in a row worn out, and depressed.  The events were overwhelming and we were once again immersed in it.  It was as if we were viewers watching it unfold at home.  Like last April, there were several nights when it was hard to sleep.

Be that as it may, we agonized over what to leave in, and what to leave out, made our tapes and DVD’s and sent them off.

We had high hopes for the statewide and regional awards groups, (most of whom have still not announced winners) but even Tim and I regarded our Peabody entry as a passing fancy.

On Wednesday morning, I knew there was a 10 a.m. ceremony where we could see the announcement of the winners.  But none of us made any effort to watch it.  Why bother?

There was no buzz in the newsroom – no sense of anticipation.  95-percent of the staff had no idea we had even entered.  I certainly wasn’t anxious to perpetuate more of the notion of Carlin’s folly.

Thus, there was no reason for Alison to be looking for anything special on the fax machine.  Nor was there any reason for Melissa to realize what she was about to read. And of course, when my cell phone rang, nothing that said to me that I was about to get the news that my snowball had just survived a pass through hell.

But somehow it did. 

It still hasn’t sunk in.  But neither have the facts of April 16, 2007.  In fact they seem just as unbelievable today as they did as we brought you those terrible hours when we learned while on the air how many innocent people had died at the university that is the focal point of so many lives – so many of our lives.

When we say we are humbled and honored, it isn’t hyperbole.  This award is so rare, so beyond what we ever thought this little television newsroom would or could accomplish, that it is difficult to describe.  By now you probably get that.

And I hope you also know that to a person, we would give it back in a heartbeat if only the events of April 16th could somehow have never happened.