The mistakes I will not repeat in the 2020 election

There are many mistakes journalists made in the 2016 election. I will never forget the feeling of laying half asleep in a hotel that night in a coverage region where all counties went to Donald Trump. I had the election results on TV as I was trying to get a few hours of sleep before having to produce the flagship 5:30 p.m. newscast the next day. There was no sleeping at some point after midnight.

The polls were wrong. And journalists have done a lot of work to try to assess these 2020 polls more accurately. I keep reading so much polling analysis and I attended the Poytner seminar about how journalists can better interpret polling. But, we're still getting it wrong. Even if the polls today have Joe Biden up by 15 percent, I still suspect there is a lot going on in the non-traditional background that make those polls misleading. Trump supporters believe him on so many lies, his touting of his "real" poll numbers are likely going a long way. Additionally, we also will not know a lot of major, dirty tactics being used by not just Trump's campaign, but other disruptive forces around the world, until after the election.

One of my biggest regrets going into the 2016 election was that I was focused on hyper-local journalism in my municipality until 2 weeks before the election. I took that as a license to not follow every person in 2016. I ignored Donald Trump as a true contender until I found myself having to report on him as president-elect. I could tell you every senator and governor up and down the east coast in that year. But I hate two to four-year-long presidential election campaigns. As a result, I didn't know the difference between Ivanka Trump and Melania Trump in 2016 and I keyed one of them wrong the day he was elected. Whoops.

I won't repeat that mistake, having learned the faces of most of his publicly prominent administration officials in the last 3.5 years.

I tried to get out of news, but every job I take, I know I will be called back to handle some of this mess. Even though I took a job in IT and I consulted for awhile, I have stayed up to date on so many initiatives, laws, news stories, candidates, tweets, and other information I really wish I could ignore.

At any moment, I could end up in a newsroom and have to know the major news stories of the last decade. The days of easy jobs have been over for me for a long time.

I do love all my work. But, there are some days I just want to do something more simple with stakes that aren't this high.

The day my toilet exploded; another bad example of police response

It was summer 2018 and my feet were up on my balcony table at 1 a.m. I was living in an expensive one bedroom apartment in an up-and-coming neighborhood in Prince George's County. I was on the phone for two hours with a coworker while sipping a now cold Starbucks coffee. And then I had to pee. Yes, we've been friends for more than a decade, we can pee while still on the phone. It's like that.

When I flushed the toilet, the tank exploded behind me. The bulb was on the ground and water was gushing everywhere. That moment I will never forget, because it is a mix of confusion, annoyance and the realization that there were only moments to react. I told my coworker I had to let her go. Emergency maintenance was the next number I dialed.

No, it's not normal for toilets to explode. After further research by several television engineers, we came to three conclusions. A toilet will explode if it has a faulty Flushmate apparatus in the tank, if the pressure of the tank was compromised or if an explosive had been placed in the tank. I did not have a Flushmate. I did not place explosives in my tank. So, it was a pressure issue.

I did make a call to two local plumbers who install Flushmates, and they did not want to be identified or comment on the Flushmate explosions.

When I moved in a year and half earlier, I left an abusive situation, had massive PTSD and ended up in a very contentious divorce. I saw the signs everywhere, but did not put them together — the water lines were full of mold. The mold compromised everything. It compromised both of my faucets, my Brita filter, my tub, my washer, and my toilet bowl. I had no idea it was building in the toilet tank, too. I tried everything to clean it all, but I just couldn't fix it. At that point, I was too bogged down to figure out the problem was likely systemic. I had never seen anything like it.

The neighbor from downstairs knocked on my door. I answered and she told me the water was cascading into her whole apartment. I went down to look, and it was just coming straight through any place it could come in the ceiling. It was coming through the smoke alarm, so I tried to stand on one of her leather chairs to take out the battery, but I was not tall enough.

I went back upstairs and waited for maintenance, holding up the bulb to stop the water. Maintenance arrived, assessed and left to shut the water off.

Then there was another knock on the door. I yelled for the maintenance guy to come back in. But he did not. I let the bulb fall and the water flow, so I could let him in. But what I found were several police officers. This situation did not require police officers. They wanted to come into the apartment. I refused, because they did not have a warrant. I asked them why there were there and who called them. They could not tell me. They had to call dispatch to get some details about the nature of the call.

They pointed out a large gash on my arm, and they asked to come in to check it out. I told them that we could step out into the hall, so that they could inspect it. I had not realized I was hit by the explosion. There was very little blood anywhere. Later, I would see a little on the door as I answered it.  It would take months for the ceramic shrapnel to vacate my body.

I told officers I would wait for EMT to arrive. They were not okay with that. They demanded entry into my apartment. I refused again. I tried to shut the door and one of the officers used his boot to block it. They rushed my apartment while I explicitly several times told them to "Get the f*** out." Then the EMT's showed up. Police had already decided to put me under arrest with no cause. I was dragged out of my apartment without examining my wound, took me to a hospital for evaluation, and then searched my home without a warrant. I was released a short time later after 12 stitches in my right arm.

Apparently, noticing my gash, the maintenance manager called 911 to request assistance. What police told me is that he had the right to let them have access to the apartment and I could not stop them. He was not there at the time they asked for access and they could not tell me why they were there. I don't believe it to be true he could grant them access, but I have not followed up on it yet. I had too much going on and had to let this go.

This police department was highlighted by President Barack Obama as one of the model community police departments in the country. I do not agree anymore. I have watched them slam Black teens to the ground for what they assessed as disobedience. I have watched them lie again and again. File false charges. I myself have filed excessive force complaints against them. I have watched them harass people, myself included. And I have watched them horse around when they should be solemn in court or protecting our citizens.

I have no disrespect for the police. I spent many years writing stories about the amazing work they do in the community. However, there are aspects of the culture that does need to change.

I gave birth to a 7-year-old pirate

My mouth has gotten me into so much trouble over the last few years. And I do not care. This is an old story from a few years ago, but it has come up out of my PTSD brain recently.

My daughter is brilliant, amazing, stressed and handling it better than I can some days. It is a horrible position for multiple adults, myself included, to put a child in. She is seven and a half as I am writing this.

I worked in live TV news for way too long. Most of us try to not have kids, because of the demands that puts on us, our kids and the companies we work for. I was pregnant managing too many TV news things. Some middle managers at my company used to joke about when my unborn child would come of an age where they could hire her. I miss the fact that those used to be jokes.

At four years old, she ran solo robotic camera in multiple studios. She also switched a show or two in my lap. I trained her to also be an audio engineer, but I can’t remember if she did any audio by herself before I stopped.

I got into trouble this week, which I owned and own, for saying some things disrespectful. Welcome to "TV news Rebecca."

One of the most disrespectful things I have ever said to someone — who was screwing around and failing us over multiple hours and shows — was this:

1. I am already doing 3 jobs.
2. We are crashing. I need you to focus. I’ve already asked several times.
3. I will just do your job, too, because at this point what I want to happen is for you to leave, go pick up my 4-year-old daughter and bring her back, because she already can do your job better than you can. 
4. I am over this.

This is a memory I am sharing, because I am so proud and thankful of my daughter. She should have never been required to navigate this. She is doing so well with what is left of her childhood.