Internet News from an Inner Perspective

Want to know what it's really like to run a news site for five years?

Images from a life of news reporting, descriptions of the photos of Tim King in larger photo below.

(SALEM, Ore.) - If journalists hungry for a change could see what an average day is like for me, they would be more than intrigued. Over the course of five years I have gathered so many news contacts that I literally can't keep up some days.

So I move forward and try to keep the pace, taking in email that ranges from contributions from our regular team of writers, to press releases from the widest variety of sources imaginable. Our writers send stories that address all kinds of subjects, and they bring a flavor to the site that no press release ever could.

Yet it is the mix of regular daily news and interesting opinion and the coverage of offbeat topics that defines Salem-News.com. We pay very close attention to military developments and veteran's issues, but then we are a nation that has been at war for the better part of a decade, with no end in sight. Someday when we are not at war, there will be less information about it on our pages.

Day in the Life

In one average day I will publish between 8 and 15 stories, writing and eventually publishing one or more of my own articles along the way. I might take out the TV camera that I've drug all over this world and put it to use for a new story about a new event or development. I could edit an existing video project, or I might come running in with a fresh story that needs to go right up. Then we have Jerry Freeman out scouting for stories, frequently bringing in video of breaking news.

As all of this is taking place, I am keeping up with a large number of people via email, fielding phone calls about a variety of subjects, and when we were broadcasting our evening newscast recently during the beta or test phase, I also started producing the news each day around noon, if I didn't want to sweat that night's show out hoping for luck and always wishing for more time than the clock allows.

It is a wild ride every day and I never have any real idea of what it will bring. In all honesty there is room for several people just in the area of what I manage each day. While we have an amazing team out there generating our content, there is always room for more help.

Anyone interested in getting involved should write to me at tim@salem-news.com. I can't offer pay but the day will come when that will change. We ideally need people willing to volunteer in news and also try to help with sales.

This is not traditionally how things are done, but it is a new world and this is new media and we have to keep paving the way. Salem-News.com as far as we know, is the most visited independently owned news Website in America. Seven days a week for five years, I have been here keeping the life in this site, with the help of outstanding people like my wife and business partner Bonnie King, our Web Designer Matt Lintz, our former News Director Kevin Hays, and more people beyond that than I could list.

New Entertainment Section

An experienced journalist named Dawn Hatchard recently joined our team to help launch a new component of Salem-News.com, an entertainment site called Oregon Nights. The goal is to be the most comprehensive entertainment guide in Oregon for live music.

All types of music will be covered and we will also look at other fun, weekend night out type of happenings like the new Salem Roller Derby events, and art exhibits, plays, you name it. This is something people really want and it will also be a fantastic opportunity for Oregon bands who will be provided space at no cost to be listed, along with an image and a music video in some cases, along with their contact information.

We plan to launch a site so comprehensive that it is equally useful for people looking for a good live act, as it is for the bands themselves when they're planning tours and looking for venues to book engagements.

We'll bring you more information in the near future about OregonNights.com.

We also are developing the Spanish site noticiasdeoregon.com, and that will take form over the coming months. This is a properly translated Spanish language Website with current news for Oregon's Hispanic community.

War and PTSD

Salem-News.com has dispatched me twice to cover Oregon soldiers at war. I went to Afghanistan over the winter of 2006/2007 as an embedded reporter with the Oregon Guard's 41st Brigade Combat Team. They are the same group currently deployed in Iraq.

Then in the summer of 2008 I went to Iraq and was embedded with the 2/641 Aviation group in Balad. I also went to Baghdad, and on several combat patrols with the 101st Airborne. I embedded with the U.S. Marines at al Asad air base in the Anbar province. Heck, I actually embedded with the same unit I served with when I was a Marine fresh out of high school, Marine Wing Support Group 37.

The main point of my work in Iraq, in addition to sending back news stories for Salem-News.com as frequently as possible, was to record interviews with soldiers and Marines about a problem that many could deal with after their combat tours. It's a massive problem everywhere in the world called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

PTSD can be a deadly problem or a manageable one, it all depends on the circumstances, and combat veterans are not the only people who suffer with it. Those interviews from Iraq, expert testimony from our writer Dr. Phillip Leveque, a PTSD Veteran who treated vets with PTSD for years, and several interviews we recently gathered on a trip through Oregon, California and Arizona, are all part of a documentary on PTSD that we have under production. It's purpose is to educate veterans, their families, and the general public at large, about treatments and therapies that are being successfully used to help offset problems related to PTSD.

The importance of this project can not be overstated. It is going to be the first documentary of this nature, as an hour barely allows time to present the information that we will include. There is no one simple solution. The Veterans Administration makes strides and steps back. There are fantastic people within the system and they deserve recognition, just as the VA's shortcomings deserve attention. Our intention is to present the most positive and insightful program possible.

We are also planning a 500 Mile March to raise funds for the program, with a tentative start time in May. We will walk from Oregon to California, with the exact starting and ending points somewhat open. The tentative destination is San Luis Obispo, California.

Each day when I'm not publishing news or keeping up with contacts, I might be working on another documentary project. I have twenty hours of footage from Afghanistan and more than ten hours of footage from Iraq. In Kabul, Afghanistan I covered what is called a "MedCap" mission which saw U.S. and British military doctors and medics treat 390 Afghan civilians. The images of the people struggling to be seen by a physician, waiting in the freezing snow and ice with babies and in some cases, no shoes, is mirrored by scenes of little children running at breakneck speed and sliding across a frozen mud pond. They are images that tell a thousand words about the misery of living in such a place. People really need to see it to understand it. I have it and I want more people to see it.

I probably have ten or more documentaries from Iraq and Afghanistan "in the can" so to speak. There is also the half hour documentary we produced for OPB in the early 1990's about the sole survivor of a WWII B-17 plane crash who came back to the crash site 50 years later to meet the men who aided in his rescue and recovery. We would like to reproduce that program at some point with today's technology and the additional facts gleaned since the program initially aired.

Left to right from top; Tim with survivor & rescuers of WWII plane crash on PBS documentary shoot, Tim King in Murvaux, France with local mayor, Tim King's news vehicle at FOX-5 in Las Vegas, the day Tim flew in an F-16, Tim records story with Gypsy Joker MC Club, Tim during his days at KATU Channel-2 News, Tim interviews ghosthunter during paranormal investigation, Tim King interviews Electric Wheels store owner Larry Dye, Tim King with friends on Ghar (mountain) outside Kabul, Afghanistan, Tim King with 101st Airborne soldiers in Iraq, Tim King reporting for FOX-12 from Afghanistan, Tim covering legislative hearing at Oregon Capitol

Military Base Contamination

Another project that has drawn significant time has been Salem-News.com's exposure of the contamination of the now closed El Toro Marine air base in Southern California. Many Marines have died from cancer and the evidence points to massive contamination; the worst being TCE (trichloroethylene) which was used to clean the fighter jets and then hazardously discarded, often straight into the ground, and the groundwater, where it now has moved as a "plume" underground all the way to the Irvine City Hall, ironically. I served there in the 1980's in what we now know to be the most contaminated part of the base. Other contaminants at the base include U-235, enriched Uranium, according to a doctor who cited the nuclear connection, then shortly thereafter died. I have gathered a team of supporters that is long and extensive and includes other El Toro Marines like Robert O'Dowd who writes for Salem-News.com today.

Of course Robert is only one of several former Marines who write for Salem-News.com. As much as we write for the benefit of peace, the Marine Corps is my history, and I recognize that Salem-News.com is an expression of what I view to be important in this world. Therefore we currently have six former U.S. Marines currently listed on our staff of writers. Each of us are from a different place, so far representing New Jersey, Oregon, California, Mississippi, Ohio and Da Nang, Vietnam.

Then we have our writers who served in the U.S. Army and Navy who we value right alongside the Marine veterans. And writing next to them are reporters who are primarily activists, in areas ranging from Medical Marijuana, to Darfur and Sudan and Israel and Palestine. We decry things like police Taser abuse and any type of abuse toward people over gender or race or religion.

Salam Alaikum

When I was in Afghanistan I met people of a different religion and culture who completely changed the way I see life. I had no preconceived thoughts, but I was very ignorant then compared to now. I learned that people in the Mideast are exactly like people anywhere else in the world. Big revelation? Perhaps not, but I write for a living and I am personally glad to know that when I do, it is not always coming from a distant perspective.

Muslim people can be religiously devout, some are disinterested, and some are way over the top, just like people anywhere else. Like Americans and Canadians and Britons, most simply work and love their families and do what it takes to have as normal of a life as possible. Throughout most of the places I have been, it is not very possible.

I watched people lose their minds and consequently their rights in the United States, over the September 11th Attacks, in fact I joined them for a short while, sort of, always behind my brother Marines and Americans, but today many writers here as well as myself, question the events and do not take the government story to purely be a matter of fact.

I also saw Iraqi "detainees" abused on an Army helicopter that I boarded out of the Marine base at Fallujah, and I try not to let that define my thoughts on that broken country's predicament that so many of us opposed from the start, for the sake of our fellow Americans and for the Iraqi people.

I strongly resent the religious persecution of Muslims and suspected Muslims in the United States following all of that hysteria from 9/11. It causes many of us to consider their plight, and stay on the side of honest reporting.

Which leads us to Israel, and the constant flow of stories that follow developments in the Mideast peace process which has been basically non-existent in recent years, if there has ever been one at all. Salem-News.com was one of the few American news agencies to publish President Carter's statements in May 2008 about Israel having hundreds of nuclear weapons, in spite of its claims of being a non-nuclear state.

In summary, because many people ask, on a personal level, my beliefs align most closely with Christianity, though I refuse to believe all other people are wrong simply because they believe differently. I see strengths and weaknesses in all religions.

Breaking the Molds Everyone Hates

The TV networks and major newspapers won't touch the subjects we cover with a ten-foot pole half the time, but they are changing with the tide. Still, they are controlled by interests like the insurance companies and the pharmaceutical companies that constantly blare the most ridiculous TV commercials urging people to ultimately prescribe their own medication; "Ask your doctor about..." while always finishing with messages like "Side effects may lead to irrational behavior, suicidal thoughts, increased risk of death or stroke, high blood sugar, in some cases high blood sugar can lead to death, impairs motor skills", and a bunch of other terrifying warnings.

The funny and sad thing is that I was just trying to think of some of those warnings above, and then the TV commercial for Abilify came on, and all I had to do is take notes.

I don't know exactly where we are heading with this electronic venture, we have wonderful sponsors but we need a lot more. Investors could greatly change the picture, (any inquiries are welcome regarding investment by the way) and our friends have helped us out through donations many times, and we greatly appreciate them.

I think the day is arriving for people to fully understand and appreciate the incredible idea of Internet news. It is everywhere you look, but imagine life with more news agencies doing what we do, or even better taking on other important roles and specialties.

We pursue these specialized subjects while doing our best to maintain the flow of regular daily news. All of the police and fire agencies in Oregon and even SW Washington send us their news releases, as do the politicians, the legislature, our elected officials in Washington D.C., etc.

The future is bright, if I don't implode in the meanwhile trying to keep this site up as a soloist. You could say I deserve whatever happens, but no event could ever change the good we have accomplished as a team, and therefore I wouldn't trade places in this life with anyone.

Again to address potential investors, we have done the groundwork we have archives that are unimaginable with original work including photo and video files from all over the world. In terms of traffic, we are seeing average of a little below 15k unique visitors every 24 hours.

In September 2009 we had 383,439 unique visitors and 1,149,225 page views.

A typical day this month, October 20th for example, saw 15,093 unique visitors and 58,882 page views. That is a lot of exposure for advertisers, and there is a lot of money to be made here. We just need fuel and we can make a lot of money. The trends continue to intersect with our existing reality. Our approach, no irritating advertising, pop-up style, etc., is welcome to our viewership. Simplicity in operation, all built from within. We will do it on our own or someone will take advantage of the opportunity, only time will tell.

If you want to be a part of this, let me know, my email is below.

-----------------------------------------------------

Tim King is a former U.S. Marine with twenty years of experience on the west coast as a television news producer, photojournalist, reporter and assignment editor. In addition to his role as a war correspondent, this Los Angeles native serves as Salem-News.com's Executive News Editor.
Tim spent the winter of 2006/07 covering the war in Afghanistan, and he was in Iraq over the summer of 2008, reporting from the war while embedded with both the U.S. Army and the Marines. Tim holds numerous awards for reporting, photography, writing and editing, including the Oregon AP Award for Spot News Photographer of the Year (2004), the first place Electronic Media Award in Spot News, Las Vegas, (1998), Oregon AP Cooperation Award (1991); and several other awards including the 2005 Red Cross Good Neighborhood Award for reporting. Serving the community in very real terms, Salem-News.com is the nation's only truly independent high traffic news Website, affiliated with Google News and several other major search engines and news aggregators.
You can send Tim an email at this address: newsroom@salem-news.com