Other Standout Stories

I wrote a deeply reported narrative story on a fire that killed two young people and the broader danger of unregulated illegal apartments. After the fire, I wanted to know whether there was a larger problem and used interviews, court filings and city records to investigate. I vividly told the story of a tragedy and dug in to how to prevent another. An accompanying service piece told how to check whether your own apartment is safe. I owned this story for my newsroom. When the victims’ families won a wrongful death lawsuit, I had a TV show-leading exclusive. 

After a Washington Nationals fan went viral for holding on to two cans of Bud Light as a home run ball smacked him in the chest, I fired off calls and emails. I had Bud Light walk me through how the company capitalized on the moment within 48 hours, and spoke with marketers about the value and future of viral advertising. It was one-of-a-kind original reporting and ranked as the top story in my entire division of NBC, nationally, for two weeks. 

I broke news before Donald Trump’s inauguration that none of D.C.’s high school marching bands would march in the inaugural parade, in a break with tradition. I had planned to produce a multimedia feature on one band’s preparations. But when band directors told me one by one that their school wouldn’t participate, I realized that was the story. Once memes falsely claimed that D.C. schools had coordinated an official boycott of the parade, I worked with the late, great Jim Vance on a TV story on the anatomy of misinformation. My stories were part of my team’s submission for an Edward R. Murrow Award. We were named best TV news website in the country.