WABC correspondent N.J. Burkett publicly shared his memories of September 11, 2001 for the first time at the Sussex County Remembrance Ceremony over the weekend. Burkett recalled speeding down to lower Manhattan with his cameraman, Marty Glembotzky, according to the New Jersey Herald:

He talked of how he told Marty to “start with a shot of me and pan up the building.” That directorial suggestion captured the moment when the first tower began to collapse. The resulting video has been replayed time and again and resulted in a Peabody Award for the station.

Then came the moments of terror as parts of the building “began raining down” and he and Marty “knew we had four, five seconds. We turn around and there is the door.” The door was to the American Express building, a route out from under the millions of tons of rubble that soon covered West Street. Read more

As a jet carrying the space shuttle Enterprise touched down today at JFK airport around 11:21 a.m. ET, every major news station in New York was carrying live coverage of its arrival.

Beginning at 10:30 a.m., WABC, WCBS, WNBC, and WNYW cut into their regularly scheduled programming to bring live coverage of the shuttle’s entry into New York City. On a windy day in which news helicopters were grounded, there was a noticeable split in how the stations covered the event: WABC and WCBS had multiple reporters in the field and the stations highlighted their team coverage, while WNBC and WNYW relied more heavily on the personalities in their respective studios. Read more

Richard Huff takes an interesting look at the use of mobile cameras at New York’s local stations in the New York Daily News today. Although the stations each bill their technology as “exclusive,” Huff concludes the coverage rarely looks unique, and can even be dangerous:

Trouble is, for the most part the reports are routine and not much different than the typical hand-held story anyone else does.

For instance, last week [WCBS reporter] Mark Morgan used the “exclusive” Mobile 2 technology to report on the Occupy Wall Street protest at Zuccotti Park. Morgan’s report was, in fact, no different than any of those done every day by [WNYW]’s John Huddy or [WABC]’s N.J. Burkett or others who have been stationed there regularly. For crying out loud, Morgan wasn’t mobile at all. He was, thankfully, stationary. Read more

“I have always been willing to take risks to cover major events, but the risks here are extremely complicated to manage,” WABC reporter N.J. Burkett said recently about his experience covering the aftermath of the Japan earthquake.

Burkett, along with photographer Mike Thorne, has traveled to Japan and is finding that conditions there are among the most difficult that he has encountered in his 25-year career, which has included coverage of the 9/11 attacks as well as the aftermath of last year’s earthquake in Haiti.

“I’d sooner take my chances with incoming missiles and suicide bombers,” Burkett told the Daily News.

The current threat of nuclear meltdown has made covering the news in Japan especially difficult. Read more