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The day the Editor Flipped
WHEN natural disaster strikes it's all hands on deck at the local newspaper.
But when Morpeth was hit by the worst flood in a century, the skipper found himself alone on the bridge.
His crew of two reporters was away, there wasn't a photographer in hailing distance, and the company video camera and editing suite was high and dry 20 miles distant.
Faced with such a dilemma, what does an Editor do? He Flips, of course.
The answer to all Terry Hackett's problems were in his pocket — 95 worth of modern miracle in the shape of his own Flip Ultra video camcorder, bought just a couple of weeks earlier.
It was the crucial piece of kit which helped him tell the town's biggest story in his lifetime in a way he had never done before and to an audience far larger than he could possibly have imagined via the Internet.
Work began shortly before 7.30am on Saturday when he started filming the first of a steady stream of video reports and ended 21 hours later when he had uploaded his last clip of the day to the website — www.morpethherald.co.uk — all edited and uploaded direct to the Internet using the camera's own built-in software.
By then the water had receded enough for him to get home to grab a couple of hours' sleep.
But he was back on the job by 8.30am on Sunday, spending the first of four days of 12-hour shifts until the ink was finally dry on the last of 24 pages of his 156-year-old broadsheet, which included an eight-page flood special.
"It was immediately apparent to me that this was a story I had to get out as quickly as physically possible," said Terry, who was evacuated from school in Morpeth when the town was struck by its previously biggest flood in 1963.
"It was told primarily via our website where our flood coverage had more than 75,000 hits and resulted in a flurry of complimentary e-mails from as far away as Canada," he added.
"I didn't struggle with a soggy notebook and pen in the way I had covering previous floods, and the little camera worked without a hiccup in atrocious conditions. Even when I dropped it, lens-down, on a concrete path when covering a Royal visit to Morpeth a few days after the flood, it continued to work.
"Although I had to weather the initial storm alone, photographer Jane Coltman was on the scene by early afternoon Saturday and by Sunday lunchtime Chief Reporter Anna Smith had returned from visiting family and was able to begin the task of compiling the story in the traditional way for the newspaper itself.
"From then onwards every member of the team, supplemented by colleagues from our sister title the News Post Leader, was able to play a full part in the final product.
"I am immensely grateful to all of them for their help, especially Leader Assistant Editor Ian Arkle; they worked extremely hard and did a great job.
"But in the end our part in this crisis was a minor one and completely eclipsed by the fantastic efforts of our rescue services, both professional and volunteers, especially the fire crews who were the real heroes of the day.
"Once again I was incredibly impressed by the resilience and fortitude of the victims of the flood itself, the people of Morpeth, whose spirit never wavered through it all."While the immediate crisis is over, the nightmare continues as they go about the dreadful business of trying to get their devastated homes back in some sort of order. And, of course, the inquest into how and why this happened and how we can prevent it occurring ever again, is under way. A lot of people are upset and angry, and understandably so.
"Finally, I must thank my long suffering wife for putting up with my prolonged absence from home. We were actually on holiday this week and this isn't the way she prefers me to spend it!"
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Weather for Morpeth
Wednesday 30 May 2012
Today
Light showers
Temperature: 10 C to 16 C
Wind Speed: 10 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
Light rain
Temperature: 8 C to 14 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: North east
