Keith Morrison latest reporter to knock on The Door of our newsroom

[Ask for it and ye shall receive! (Unless it’s a tax refund.) Our month-long-ish retrospective of The Door in our newsroom continues with a special visit from ABC News reporter/creepy guy Keith Morrison…]

It seems as though ABC reporters Barbara Walters, Morley Safer and John Quinones have finally given up on gaining an exclusive to The Door (of Shame, Blame and Brilliance). It’s been nearly a week since Safer has faxed any threatening images of his booty, which we began handing out for a new children’s coloring contest. Interestingly, there seems to be a 50/50 split between children who believe it is the image of a dense forest surrounding an abandoned well, and those who are think it is the Death Star exploding.

In addition, Walters is no longer leaving angry messages such as “Your CAWEER is HISTOWY!” on my voice mail, and Quinones has stopped Tweeting “@Ned Hickson: What would YOU do? Give me an exclusive before you become a Dateline Mystery!”

Which brings us to this week’s entry from The Door, and the latest reporter to begin hounding us for an exclusive to what Anderson Cooper has called “A journalistic milestone of unparalleled significance, not counting my decision to wear Dockers that were a size too small during broadcasts.”

Apparently, Dateline Mystery correspondent Keith Morrison managed to get word of today’s entry from The Door, which means 1) we are now getting phone calls from him in that creepy voice, and 2) we suspect there is a mole here at Siuslaw News. Needless to say, we have ramped up security around The Door in an effort to discover who the informant is and, most importantly, ensure Morrison and his accusatory eye brows never make it past the front desk.

Judging from the confused expressions of those visiting for the first time, I should explain that The Door is home to four decades of newspaper clippings, taped there by Siuslaw News reporters since the 1970s to celebrate the best and worst examples of print journalism headlines, photos and anything else that asks the question: “Ummm… Wuh?”

Before I reveal today’s entry, we must follow the tradition of joining hands (even the sweaty ones, sorry) — and repeating the following phrase together in a monotoned voice similar to someone calling into a radio station and inadvertantly winning tickets to a Justin Bieber concert:

The Door is a becon, drawing us into the jagged rocks of journalism

In a moment, you will see why today’s entry — which was just added to The Door in February — is of particular interest to Keith Morrison and his team at Dateline Mystery. In addition to being the only non-newspaper clipping on The Door, it is a prime example of how we, as reporters, work hand-in-hand with informants to establish leads to unravel mysteries in the same way pulling at a loose string on your sweater leaves you with a big pile of useless wool…

Below is a message left for a reporter here at Siuslaw News, from someone who came in to give us the lead on a breaking news story at a local hotel…

This is a brief look into the world of a small town journalist who, after receiving a lead like this, often finds themselves standing in line at the grocery store behind their informant and wondering: “Wait… does this person know where I live?”

Or worse, standing in line behind Keith Morrison…

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(Ned Hickson is a syndicated columnist with News Media Corporation. His first book, Humor at the Speed of Life, is available from Port Hole Publications, Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble.)