"You Are Connected to The Star Car"

After several months of talk and planning, the newsroom finally got to play with the Star Car SUV today.

For those not familiar with our new project, it's pretty fancy. A vehicle equipped with all kinds of gadgets - video cameras, tripods, a laptop, police scanner, webcam, document scanner - and it's all wireless so we can report live from wherever we are.

I'm thinking about getting it featured on MTV's Pimp My Ride.

As print reporters, we've learned to do our job a certain way. Adding all this new technology makes us juggle a lot more stuff when we go out to a scene. The added responsibility will take a while for us to get used to but we'll manage.

A few of us did a practice run with the vehicle and drove it to Uptown Shelby, beside the court square, to cover a mock story. The plot? A gunman had taken hostages inside the old courthouse.
I took some photographs, write some details from our "eyewitness" and Pete shot video of the interview. Then we plugged everything up to the laptop and - within a minute - everything was moved to where it could be uploaded to The Star website.

Pretty nifty stuff.

I'm sure you'll be seeing and hearing a lot more about the Star Car in the coming months.