Download: RSS | Email Alerts | Wireless
Recent reports from:
Email Ben

Check out Ben's Blog on CBS 21 Community!

     Ben Russell is proud to join the news team at CBS 21. He came on in July 2006 as a general assignment reporter.

     Ben comes to Harrisburg from Bridgeport, WV where he spent three years at WDTV, the CBS affiliate in North Central West Virginia. While in WV, Ben had the opportunity to cover a wide range of stories. He had a sit-down interview with 2004 Democratic Presidential nominee John Kerry. He reported live for 40-uninterrupted minutes while a military airplane with faulty landing gear circled high above a local airport (the pilot eventually executed a perfect belly flop onto the runway.) And he had the opportunity to cover the West Virginia University football team (his alma mater!) as it travelled to two bowl games, including a win at the 2006 Nokia Sugar Bowl in Atlanta, GA.

     And it was that same day, January 2nd, 2006, that will forever shape Ben's career in journalism. While he was in Atlanta, there was an explosion at a small coal mine 600 miles away in Upshur County, WV. 13 men were trapped inside the Sago Mine. Only one came out alive. What began as local story quickly became national news. And Ben was covering college football.

     Within 24 hours of the explosion, Ben had reported live from Atlanta with interviews from the Governor and several local people who had made the trip to Georgia for the big game, had covered the biggest victory in WVU football history, and had made the 600 mile trip back to Sago to help in his station's coverage of the biggest national news story of the new year.

     What happened to those men and their families is nothing short of a tragedy. And it was difficult to witness the transformation from joy, when the initial false reports that 12 were found alive spread like wildfire through the crowd, to horror when the awful truth was revealed. But Ben is proud of the work he and his colleagues produced, and he counts himself lucky for having had the opportunity to tell the stories of the people and the families for whom the Sago Mine will forever be a reminder of how precious life is.

     In addition to working in West Virginia, Ben is a 2003 Graduate of the West Virginia University Perley Isaac Reed School of Journalism. He graduated Magna Cum Laude and at the top of his Broadcast Sequence. And to complete the West Virginia trifecta, Ben is also a native of the Mountain State! Morgantown, the University City, is home. His parents and many of his friends still live there. And Ben plans to make the 3 1/2 hour trip often, especially during Mountaineer football season.

     But in the meantime, Ben is exploring Central Pennsylvania. He spent one year at The Hill School in Pottstown, PA, so he's already familiar with the region. And now he's looking forward to meeting the people. If you see him out, say hello; he will almost certainly stop to chat.

Back to biographies  
 




Latest Blog Posts:
  This site is hosted and managed by Inergize Digital Media.