By Jesse Ross
Critical Mention gets many “find my clip” requests from clients who are not subscribers of our self-service platform, but would like to obtain broadcast footage for various reasons.
These reasons range from viewing coverage of a company mentioned by Bloomberg to obtaining a shareable, playable video file of a child athlete whose game was covered on a local newscast.
We even received an inquiry from a motorist interviewed by a network local affiliate for skidding off the road during a blizzard.
Sisters Adrienne Bradshaw (left) and Sabrina Sawyer
Last week, I fielded a request from a woman named Adrienne Bradshaw, which started off as a standard, nothing-out-of-the-ordinary request for a CNN interview on Robin Roberts, the ABC
Good Morning America anchor who underwent a bone marrow transplant to treat myelodysplastic syndrome. Unfortunately, the coverage was from all the way back in September and had already expired in our platform.
After sending a couple of emails back and forth regarding some other options that Critical Mention offers for obtaining expired footage, I learned that Adrienne is a chemotherapy patient and had sent in the request because being on national television has been one of her favorite memories. Her bright disposition caught me off guard after learning about her health struggles, and the email exchange was extremely moving.
She wrote, “There has been some sunshine even during my health trials. That interview was truly one of them and I had more sunshine just yesterday. I was featured in the Living section of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.”
The AJC profile included a photograph of Adrienne and her older sister, who saved her life by giving her stem cells. After reading the article I learned that, not only has Adrienne survived cancer once, but THREE times, she also volunteers with the Be the Match Foundation.
The article was about how Roberts has helped raise awareness of the importance of stem cell and bone marrow transplants in the minority community, and how more participation in the registry is needed to bolster the pool of potential donors.
I wrote back to thank Adrienne for passing along the inspirational AJC article and told her that my aunt had always told me everything happens in threes — and that I hope, in her case, this holds true.
She responded, “You’re aunt is absolutely right! Three strikes and cancer is out!”
Well, Critical Mention wanted to give Adrienne her third featured story. It might only be a blog post, but we think her positive attitude on life deserves to be celebrated and shared. We’d also like to give a shout out to Adrienne’s remarkable sister, Sabrina Sawyer, for saving her life. Thank you, Adrienne, for sharing your inspiring story with us.
For those interested in learning more about the Be the Match Foundation, the web site is www.marrow.org
(Photo by Phil Skinner, Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
