The Inspiration before the Adversity.

When I first published this collection of stories, I was reflecting on nearly two decades spent reporting the worst days of people’s lives as a television news reporter. What stayed with me most, however, were the quieter moments behind the headlines — the kindness, resilience, and unexpected grace that rarely made it into a ninety‑second news story.

Over the years since this book first appeared, those lessons have taken on deeper meaning. Not long after writing these stories about witnessing resilience in others, my family faced a life‑threatening crisis of our own when my husband suffered sudden cardiac arrest. That experience — and the extraordinary race to save his life — became the subject of my second book, 'Deadline: A Reporter’s True Story of Cardiac Arrest and the Race to Survive.'

Looking back, I realize the perspective I gained while reporting the stories in this book prepared me in ways I never expected. The moments of courage, compassion, and human connection I witnessed over the years had quietly reshaped how I understood crisis, survival, and hope.

This revised edition of Beyond the Headlines remains what it was intended to be from the beginning: a reporter’s notebook of the hidden stories that reveal the deeper truth behind the news — that even in the midst of hardship, the human spirit has a remarkable way of showing up.