Tuesday, October 17, 2006

TMC NEWS: FIRST 100 DAYS

100 Days, 20,000 hits

Today marks the 100th day of TMC NEWS being online. I wanted to take this chance to thank all of the people who check this site every day, even those of you who just check in from time to time, it’s appreciated. One of the questions I get the most is, what is this TMC NEWS thing all about? Well, I’ll tell you. Most of you remember the idiot who robbed the bank in Lorain years ago then led the police on a chase throughout the county. The chase happened to end up across from my Studio in downtown Elyria when Cheney, who couldn’t make the turn onto Broad from Middle, drove into a parked car, pushing a woman into a store front window. Being the seasoned news veteran that I was at the time, I was able to capture it all on video. That video was seen on every local station as well as across the world on CNN & FOX NEWS. The video is still shown today on many video clip shows. Shortly after that crash I signed a contract with NewsChannel 5 to provide them with stories in the Lorain County area. That relationship lasted several years up until the news director, Jim LeMay, was promoted and shipped out of town. The new administration was not a fan of outside bureaus so our contract was not renewed. There I was, left out on the street. Well, not really on the street, but not chasing news anymore.

Since then I have missed shooting news. In July I happened to be close to a house fire call in Sheffield Township so I stopped by and snapped a few pictures. I was first going to post them on my personal blog, but then I decided to create a news blog for it. A couple days later I posted the news of my friend’s child being born. I emailed the link to some friends to force them to look at the pics and read the stories and well, the rest they say is history.

Since then the site has grown to be much bigger then I had imagined it would be. There have been 155 stories posted, not all have been huge news stories. I did cover that tree down on Glenwood and Columbus St. and I still hear about that one from a certain TMC NEWS fan. TMC NEWS is just online to allow people another source of newsgathering. I still read the Chronicle Telegram everyday, I still watch NewsChannel 5 every night. I catch hell for this but I even read the Austin Statesman everyday as well. TMC NEWS cannot be at every breaking news stories; I try, but can’t get to them all. The hope is, that the stories that are presented on TMC NEWS are presented fairly and in a unique way .

The Future of TMC NEWS
Not much will change on TMC NEWS. People seem to like the layout of the site so that will not change much. We expect to be making an announcement before the end of the year, some very exciting news. Since my first love in shooting video and since we have been developing relationships with some Cleveland TV stations TMC NEWS will be adding video cameras to our equipment list. You will still see still pictures and plenty of them along with the stories we bring you. The addition of the video is just to make TMC NEWS a stronger news source in our area. One other change that you will see in the near future will of course be an ad banner. I PROMISE you all that there will never be pop-ups and for those of you that are on our email list your emails will never be shared with anyone. One of the compliments that I get on the site is how clean and simple it is, that will not change either. I like the clean look and I love simple.

Chatter Boxes
The comments section has been a favorite of a lot of people. Some like to leave comments, most like to just read them. Since July we have seen many that are funny (Jason & Haasenfoose), some that are infuriating, others have been enlightening and there have been a few that tug at the heartstrings. In the future I hope to have a site where you have to post your name and city in order to post a comment. The ability to comment anonymously has brought out the nasty side of some people. I am not trying to censor anyone; if you want to voice your opinion that many other people may disagree with I have no problem with that as long as you post your name as well.

Who are you people?
As I said with the comments section, we hear from a lot of you through that section. I also receive emails from people asking questions or just commenting on the site. I recently received an unexpected email from WKYC anchorman Tim White complimenting the site and offering words of encouragement. The email was very kind and greatly appreciated. When we had the “email drive” back a couple months ago I learned that we have readers from not only outside of the Lorain County area, but outside the state. TMC NEWS has readers in Texas, Tennessee, Florida, North Carolina and California. We did not reach the goal of adding 1,000 emails to the list but we did add more then I thought we would. I suppose this is where I ask you; did you all send out mass emails to family and friends telling them to get signed up for the TMC NEWS EMAIL ALERTS? No, well get off your butts and get it done. If Mike Polutnik can do it anyone can. For those of you that we have not heard from feel free to drop us a line. You can email at
tmcnews1@aol.com or leave a comment here attached to this posting.
I look forward to hearing where everybody is located; lets add some news states to the list. There must be some Elyria folks in Las Vegas. There is one other person who is a supporter of TMC NEWS that I want to thank. I call her my “copy editor”. She will email me after reading the posts and tell me what words I misspelled. I have told her that when I open my mailbox and see an email from her I start getting nervous wondering what word I messed up.

Well, that’s it now you can get back to work. Thanks again for reading and I hope you keep checking back to see what we have found, “In Our Community”.

16 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

T, I LOVE your site and I thank you for putting it up there for all to see. I am forever amazed (as I work at 911) that the story is on your site before my shift is over. It is nice to see some of the calls I get and it is so professionally done. I know this is an incredible amount of work you put in here and it can't be easy at times.

Keep up the good work!!

Donna (Aviles) Chopcinski. remember me? Blonde Amazon Lifecare medic!?!? (back in the days....1997)

2:40 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Congratulations TMC. Keep up the great work.

9:30 AM  
Blogger Sarahmoonbeam said...

So YOU were the guy with the quick camera downtown! That was and IS a great catch. Was sitting in my house at the time with my Mother & Father-in-law and we were listening to a police scanner we had at the time and heard the whole thing.
Congrats on a 100 days of great news coverage. Here's to many more *clink*

10:49 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Love the site. I enjoy the number of pictures you add to the big stories. Looking forward to the next 100 days.

12:16 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

TMC NEWS ROCKS! SORRY ABOUT YELLIING BRUCE. tmc news rocks. is that better?

1:35 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Happy 100 Days. I log on everyday to see what is going on back home. I even liked the tree story.

2:16 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

GREAT local coverage.

2:49 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

i also love the local coverage but the getting the breaking news like about the plane crash in new york and the story about steve irwin i read about those first here on tmc news so i appreciate that. i spend my day at work at the computer so that is where i get my news then at night i am at the computer again for writing papers so i check in a lot to see what is going on. i would also like to say that i am so glad that paramedic who wrote the comment should be proud of the work that she does. I know for a fact that they do not make a ton of money so they should be commended for their work. god bless you and hug your daughter.

3:32 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

TMC--- Keep up the great work!!! There are so many people who daily check your website to get the latest up to date news. Keep us informed. If we see something and get some pictures or video, can we submit it to you?

8:43 PM  
Blogger TMC NEWS said...

Sure - Call with any breaking news 440 610 2352 or email stories to tmcnews1@aol.com THANKS

8:51 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey TMC... You know I'm a fan and a friend of yours. Maybe sometime I will dig up some photographs from your early days a "seasoned veteran" Then again maybe not... I think I lost them when I tossed out my golf clubs and the big hat......

11:27 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Awww. Share the love. Thanks for the shout out too. I don't care much about news (especially Lorain County) but if I did, this would be my first stop. When that ad banner gets "installed" I want to be the first to pimp myself out as a sales guy at Value City in North Olmsted. Because I can. And I am that good. Keep it going TMC.

12:30 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

great site and love reading all of the comments as well.

3:20 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Howard still has glass laying on the floor from that day down town

8:53 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

CONGRATS TMC NEWS, Keep up the good work. I also want to thank the people who wrte all the funny comments. keep those coming too.

10:09 PM  
Blogger Sarahmoonbeam said...

HEY haasenfoose Sorry to say...I GOT that dime joke right away. Remember to eat your beans..tee-hee!

1:05 AM  

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