Prince of Darkness, King of Horror

I got to do a fun story on how Stephen King not only sells truckloads of books, but he's a massive figure in television as well. 

The Stand just came out on CBS All Access, though I'd written and published the story months before. 

A couple shows adapted from King novels got cancelled after my story came out, including The Outsider on HBO and Castle Rock on Hulu. But another came back to life--Mr. Mercedes, which did not get past three seasons on Audience Network, but has shifted to streaming network Peacock. 

Many, many others came before, including Under the Dome on CBS and Amazon, and 11/22/63 on Hulu. 

Epix has a series based on a King yarn

coming up called Chapelwaite. Epix president Michael Wright said, “Stephen King is literally one of our generation’s greatest storytellers. His books are so wonderfully rooted in great characters and great storytelling.”

Covering Two Stories of a Lifetime

Journalists had what were essentially two stories of a generation to cover this summer, between the pandemic and the protests stemming from George Floyd's killing. 

I spoke with reporters from CNN, Fox News, CBS News, NBC News and other outlets about how they were holding up, and what they learned while covering these two mammoth stories. 

“I feel like we lurched from one story of a lifetime to another,” said Scott Gordon, a reporter at KXAS Dallas-Fort Worth with 35 years in the game. “I’ve covered a lot of big stories in my time, but I’ve never seen anything like this. The sheer magnitude of what’s going on keeps me going. I want to be there to document the history that’s unfolding.”

Florida Man Stars in TV Show

 I have a fun cover story on why so many TV shows are set in Florida, and how Florida gives a show a certain sensibility, usually a weird, anything-can-happen one. 

The story is called 'State of Shock.' Shows set in Florida include On Becoming a God in Central Florida, Florida Girls, Floribama Shore and Claws. 

Claws creator Eliot Laurence said he always had Florida in mind for the setting. “There’s insanity everywhere, but there’s something about the Floridian version,”
he said. Claws is set in Florida due to “my love of weirdness and my attraction to the state of Florida being the weirdest place,”
he added.