Meeting "Mister Twister"

Earlier this week, I got a chance to meet iReport.com Superstar William Bernstein! That's William (on the right) and me in the pic above. He happened to be in Atlanta and while he was here he paid us a visit at CNN Center. I was in the building and lucky enough to be invited down to the CNN.com newsroom to hang out with him.

The people we feature on "News To Me" are from all over the world. That's one of the beautiful things about this show, as long as someone has a webcam or video camera and a phone we can put them and their story on TV. One of the drawbacks to that setup is that aside from email, that long distance interaction is all we get to have with our guests. No lunches, no handshakes... not even a fist-bump usually.

Don't get me wrong, we'd love to meet more of you. Eric has sat down with "The Amtrekker," "Purple 53" and "The Worst Person in the World" to name a few. But those are the exceptions. So it was a rare treat for me to actually hang out with William for a while.

If you aren't familiar with William's work head over to iReport.com and check out his growing list of updates from Virginia Beach, VA. From politics to financial news to community news and most importantly to William, weather. His iReports have been featured on "News To Me" a few times... but his most memorable appearance was during his coverage of a tornado that touched down near his hometown. We dubbed him "Mister Twister!" There was an excitement in that report, you could tell he was really thrilled to be there as the news was beginning to happen (watch »). In the days following he continued to report on the damage and how the community was dealing with the aftermath.

Bill and I took a whirlwind tour of CNN Center and compared notes on how we do things at CNN compared to how he does things in his home studio... surprisingly, I think we both came away with some good ideas on how to improve both of our products! I'm looking forward to seeing some of William's next uploads to see if the techniques and tips we traded make it into his upcoming iReports!

In a few weeks, "News To Me" will be profiling William as the first in a semi-regular series featuring Superstar iReporters, and blog readers will get a special "behind the scenes" of William's home studio.

Check out a couple more shots :

There was no one sitting on the main anchor desk for a few seconds so we snuck up and got a shot. William is a huge severe weather fan, so it's only fitting that in the background you can see CNN's Hurricane Headquarters with the words, "Dolly Makes Landfall," scrolling overhead.

You don't need fancy gear to be a great iReporter... William does a lot of shooting in the field with this simple cellphone cam! Our friends over at iReport.com went out in the field with him to find out what other kind of gear William keeps handy just in case news breaks! Catch their full report here ».

If you'd like to see William's visit from his own point of view... watch his iReport here ».