About the Story: The day Mary Love disappeared, her parents did not immediately call authorities. They searched for the girl themselves. Later that night they called 911 to report their daughter's disappearance. The next morning, as a rescue team combed the neighborhood, reporters broadcast live and showed Mary's picture. They gathered information from family, neighbors, volunteer searchers and police. Reporters also had to sift through rumors. Could her family have been involved? In early interviews, her father didn't appear somber or sad. In this story, reporter Hagit Limor updates the search and shows what happened throughout the day.

Behind the Story: Hagit Limor says she approaches all her stories with one question: "What is the image of this story that will stay with me?" In this case, the image was the sad sweetness of innocent children playing in the midst of a deadly serious search. Limor knew that image would guide her storytelling-that, and an open mind. As she gathered information, she picked up rumblings of suspicion about Mary's father. When she interviewed him, "he was not completely forthcoming," she says, and he "did and said things that could have been misconstrued." Reporters at the scene said he smelled of alcohol. But Limor steered clear of speculation in her story, even when the man and his wife were taken to the police station for questioning. She was careful to point out that this questioning was routine procedure. Limor had other concerns. She was reporting live. What if a dangerous person were holding Mary? What if that person were watching TV? Limor asked herself, "What can I do that will not anger anyone who has control of her life?" Limor was equally cautious as she talked with neighborhood children. "I never interview a child on camera without a guardian's permission first," she says. She chose her questions carefully, avoiding any that she felt would frighten the children.

Beyond the Story: After this story aired, and the search continued, a detective suggested that WCPO might want to check out a neighbor, Ralph Lynch, who was helping to look for the girl. Several neighbors had said he'd recently been seen with Mary. Lynch agreed to an interview with WCPO and denied any wrongdoing. When the interview aired, the station did not characterize Lynch as a suspect. Mary's body was found nine days after she disappeared. She had been abused and her body was left in a wooded are near a dump, three miles from her home. When Lynch was arrested and charged, the station aired the interview again, now a portrait of a man lying about a murder. Lynch has since been convicted of the murder and sentenced to death. WCPO's treatment of this story reflects the station's deliberate approach to reporting on breaking news.

• Assignments are thought through. The station chose Limor to lead the dayside coverage. She is a strong live reporter who thrives on spot news and excels in gathering the facts on big stories. "She's very thorough, careful and more senior," says Stuart Zanger, WCPO's news director at the time. Because of her experience, Limor resisted making assumptions about the father in the story. "When we start to report, we have a concept in our mind of how people react," she said, "but over the years, you learn that some people grieve in different ways." Instead of narrowing her reporting focus when she heard neighbors and fellow journalists speculate about the father, she kept an open mind. Limor also took a thoughtful approach to covering the children in the neighborhood. She sought ways to tell their story without traumatizing them.
  
  
• The newsroom looks below the surface. The station approached this story as a community concern, not just a crime story. Zanger recalls his staff taking both a breaking news and a civic journalism approach to the story. They told the immediate story of the missing girl. In addition, they listened to the neighborhood-listened for issues and concerns, and reported them.
  
  
• Live reports are journalistically justified. "There was a real reason to be live there," says Limor, who describes herself as a very old-style, traditional journalist, one who values writing and enterprise. The search was still going on as the newscast went on the air. In her story, Limor shares the urgency of the search in a straighforward and compelling manner. "I believe you can convey emotion without being emotional," she says. In her taped package, she let the story breathe, using natural sound to provide the viewer a sense of what was happening on a hot day, during an intense search.