Brandon Smith-Hebson — a journalist

Three members of an anti-fracking group based in Yellow Springs have traveled around the state and the country to teach others about the possible dangers of fracking and to join protests against it. Photo by Brandon Smith-Hebson, used courtesy of Dayton Daily News.

To accompany a Sunday front-page centerpiece on fracking, once again I joined the Dayton Daily News staff to report the fracking opposition emanating from Yellow Springs.

It was hard to be super specific about these people’s concerns in such a brief story (after all, they’re true scholars of natural gas drilling). But I think I communicated the the essence of their angst. Here’s a PDF of the same. My piece appeared on page 11 of the “A” section.

Posted in My work, pollution

An elder at a Presbyterian church shows off the sign he had printed — with the logo of the denomination his church just joined. The denomination they left had founded the church more than a century before. Photo by Barbara Perenic, used courtesy of the Springfield News-Sun.

This is at least the second time my work has made a section front of the Dayton Daily News. (I feel like it had previously, but no one told me.)

Anyway, in the story I tried to describe the situation both as the parties involved see it — a theological issue — and as the outside world sees it — a gay rights issue. While I could have written three times the length, I think I said what needed to be said.

Here’s a PDF of Springfield’s treatment, always more impressive ’cause it’s a smaller paper.

Posted in Uncategorized

Hello, folks — just a quick update today, from the middle of a day of story research.

The story on the Fairborn home explosion got a lot of play in news outlets across the country over the weekend — a Google News search returned “554 similar articles” to the Washington Post’s version of my story.

USA Today also picked it up from the AP, along with countless television stations and at least the following newspapers:

Jackson Sun, Miami Herald, Arizona Daily Sun, Sacramento Bee

If only I saw some of the cash earned from those quotes I used my iPhone to e-mail out of the wreckage! USA Today and Washington Post both used my two best ones.

Posted in journalism, My work

Two men digging for a water line Saturday afternoon struck a gas line and blew up a house in Fairborn. This was what was left of the duplex they were working on. Photo by Brandon Smith-Hebson.

MONDAY A.M. UPDATE: A 75-year-old man was found dead in the rubble on Sunday. It was my day off, so a colleague reported it. Since his story is the most complete version of events at the scene, his story has replaced mine online. Officials said five others injured will probably be OK.

This was the biggest breaking news I’ve ever reported. I was drafted by the Dayton Daily News for the job, because I could get there faster than their reporters could. I continually called in updates, e-mailed quotes, and sent photos from my phone, into the night.

My story was the lead on page A1 of today’s (Sunday) Dayton Daily, and an inside version was the Local centerpiece.

My first sight on the scene was this. I quickly snapped a picture in fear someone would move it from its place on a nearby sidewalk. Blood spatters stained the sidewalk for a full block in one direction from the explosion.

Posted in My work

Today’s paper features the results of health district tests of private drinking water wells near pollution seeping from a New Carlisle landfill.

Good news: the comprehensive VOC test returned negative results, so people aren’t drinking vinyl chloride.

The landfill is a U.S. EPA Superfund site, and is leaching the carcinogen into the aquifer at hazardous concentrations.

The health district tested the wells in response to my article that publicized a portion of an Ohio Department of Health report. That report said that no one could be sure whether the pollution hadn’t migrated into residential wells by now.

Posted in Uncategorized