A piece of the past with the present
New York City, NY
By Shannon Stapleton
Every time I have to cover a story related to the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center I always hope that I will be able to forget that day and the so many lives affected by the tragedy.
Today was not different. It’s a beautiful spring day and being down near the Ground Zero site was probably the last place I wanted to be. But covering one of the last pieces being hoisted onto One World Trade Center did provide a glimmer of closure.
Ghost town of Superstorm Sandy
Breezy Point, New York
By Shannon Stapleton
Driving into the city I was listening to NPR talking about it being the sixth anniversary of Hurricane Sandy.
At first I couldn’t believe it had been six months already, and then I thought more about it and it seemed like years ago. The last time I was in Breezy Point and the Rockaways not much had changed.
Adventures on the western frontier
North Dakota
By Shannon Stapleton
It had been a couple months since I traveled somewhere to cover an assignment and I have to admit I was really looking to get out of town.
So when I heard that the Reuters text operation was covering a story in Williston, North Dakota on the Bakken Oil boom I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to visit a place that I had never been before. That same day I picked up the month’s edition of National Geographic and saw on the cover that one of my favorite photographers Eugene Richards had spent some time there this past summer. I was excited to embark on an adventure to the western frontier and see for myself this modern day gold rush.
Flights cancelled as blizzard begins to wallop northeastern U.S
BOSTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – A blizzard blew into the northeastern United States on Friday, bringing whiteout conditions to some parts of New England and threatening to drop record amounts of snow around Boston.
Authorities scrambled to prepare for the storm, which had already touched off a massive traffic pile-up in southern Maine and prompted organizers of the nation’s sledding championship in Maine to postpone a race scheduled for Saturday, fearing too much snow for the competition.
Blizzard begins to wallop northeastern U.S.
BOSTON/NEW YORK, Feb 8 (Reuters) – A blizzard blew into the
northeastern United States on Friday, bringing whiteout
conditions to some parts of New England and threatening to drop
record amounts of snow around Boston.
Authorities scrambled to prepare for the storm, which had
already touched off a massive traffic pile-up in southern Maine
and prompted organizers of the nation’s sledding championship in
Maine to postpone a race scheduled for Saturday, fearing too
much snow for the competition.
Powerful blizzard takes aim at northeastern U.S.
BOSTON/NEW YORK, Feb 8 (Reuters) – The northeastern United
States braced for a possibly historic blizzard that could drop
up to three feet (nearly one meter) of snow from Friday to
Saturday and bring travel to a halt.
Blizzard warnings were in effect from New Jersey through
southern Maine, with Boston expected to bear the brunt of the
storm. The day began with light snow and winds that were due to
pick up with much heavier snowfall by afternoon.
Facing tragedy in Colorado
By Shannon Stapleton
I woke on the morning of July 20th happy and looking forward to a great weekend with my son at his last lacrosse tournament of the season.
That feeling of happiness changed quickly when I looked on the phone and it said “Can you get on a plane to Denver as soon as possible, there has been a mass shooting at the screening of Batman with 12 people dead and numerous injured.” My heart started to race and all I could think of was how just five months prior I had responded to the senseless killing of three high school students in Chardon, Ohio. A place close to my heart because it was near where I grew up and had played my last high school football in 1987.
Remembering where I came from
By Shannon Stapleton
Throughout my career I have covered my share of despair caused by senseless killings, war and natural disasters in other countries and within the United States. You become kind of jaded and realize that when you get the call to go cover one of these assignments that you are going in as a journalist and your job is to cover the reality of the situation no matter how bad it is. Little did I know that I would someday be covering such tragedy in a place around 25 miles from where I grew up.
I received the call on Tuesday to get on a plane to Chardon, Ohio, a blue collar town of 5,000 outside of Cleveland a day after the senseless shooting of five high school students, that ended with three dead by the end of the week. I boarded a plane as soon as possible and arrived in Akron, Ohio around 5:00 pm where I drove for an hour to make a candlelight vigil honoring the victims of the shootings at St. Mary’s church in Chardon, Ohio.
Classes resume at Ohio school four days after shooting
CHARDON, Ohio (Reuters) – Classes resumed on Friday at Chardon High School, four days after a 17-year-old opened fire in a cafeteria, killing three students in the deadliest shooting rampage at a U.S. high school in six years.
After an emotional display of community support on Thursday, when students and parents marched through the streets of the small town east of Cleveland to the quiet applause of their neighbors, all Chardon schools continued what Superintendent Joseph Bergant called a “journey of rebuilding.”
The future of Iraq
By Shannon Stapleton
When asked, “What do you see for the future of Iraq now that the United States military is leaving the country ?”, 12-year-old student Kharar Haider replied, “I don’t think we will have more problems and it is better than when Saddam was here. We have no heating or light in school. I don’t think that is going to get better.”
Upon arriving in Baghdad on Dec. 1st of 2011 for my first time in Iraq, the question that I couldn’t get out of my mind as we made our way through a maze of military checkpoints was “What will be the future of Iraq after we leave?” If security was this tense now, I could not imagine what was going to happen after the U.S. troops finally pulled out of this war-torn country.
-
Follow Shannon
