A year ago, I had just gotten to the radio station. 5 a.m., Monday morning, the only one in the building, ready to start my show. I had a stack of stuff to talk about, like I always do — I remember very clearly one hot news item was about the Weinermobile.
I walked into the studio ready to start, and 15 minutes before my mic went hot, President Obama announced that Osama bin Laden had been killed.
I was the lowest ranking person at the station, and suddenly I had to figure out what to do. What to say. Now, my audience was tiny at the time, but given that it was PT commute time and that it had JUST happened? There was a pretty good chance that I was the first person some people would be hearing this news from.
And so, I improvised. I scoured the web for as many credible and interesting sources that I could find, I described the photos coming through on Twitter, I echoed parts of the president’s address, and I tried to be relevant — and appropriate. I tried to put out the information in the absence of guidance as to how to talk about it.
I saved that show so I could listen to it later. I sound rattled, I sound greener than I am now, but it’s something to have. No, I wasn’t in the SEAL team. Not even close by seven thousand imaginations. But I was doing my mission that morning, just the same.
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