Going up in smoke...the end of the summer slowdown

I've been caught up in the media blitz surrounding those alleged firefighter arsonists in Brimfield/Holland. This is the big news story I've been craving all summer and yet I can't help but feel the slightest twinge of remorse when looking at the five individuals involved. They're just kids and anything I write will just contribute to the public backlash...

Found out about the whole thing last Thursday night, barely slept, and after digging for what seemed like hours for information on Friday morning, made it to court in time for their arraignment at noon. I hate covering arraignments. It's a lot of sitting around wondering what information the other media has obtained and how they got it and whether or not you can infiltrate their source to get it too. The actual arraignment itself is too much of a blur to make sense of initially -- it usually lasts under five minutes. Spent some time talking to the assistant district attorney and the state trooper assigned to the fire marshal's office before going to fight with the court clerk staff (the rudest collection of women I've ever met in my life) to get a hold of court documents before heading back to work. That was my Friday in a nutshell. I got back to the office around 1:30-2 p.m. and settled down to make sense of the whole thing so as to write about it coherently. Finished writing in about an hour. It's a tough job...

This arson thing is huge news around here. 7News and Channel 4 in Boston both picked up the story, as did the Boston Globe, which is saying something. Typically Boston news ignores Western Mass. Hell, for the most part it ignores Worcester. I can't help but feel slightly smug about the fact that my company has the story because of me and my penchant for chasing fires. As of right now, it's slated to run in three of our papers, including mine. And I've decided since it's such a big news story, I might as well capitalize on it while I can and wrote a column about it as well...

So long summer slowdown!