A longtime reporter and editor for ARLnow and its sister sites, known for his colorful headlines and thoughtful human interest stories, is leaving for greener pastures.
Or maybe that’s just a green screen.
After seven years at ARLnow — and its Local News Now LLC sister sites ALXnow, FFXnow and the bygone Tysons Reporter and Reston Now — today (Thursday) is Vernon Miles’ last day. He’s departing Northern Virginia’s hyperlocal news scene to work as a writer and producer at FOX 5.
Miles says he’s excited for the “exhilarating” atmosphere of TV news but will miss the creativity and personal touch of his various reporting roles.
Also, the punny (and occasionally raunchy) headlines.
“I will never, ever, ever have another job where I can get away with some of the stuff that I got away with,” Miles said with a laugh. “From showing up to work in flip-flops to writing, like, almost embarrassing headlines, this is the Wild West of journalism and I will miss that a lot.”
Some of Miles’ favorite stories have titles like “Torpedo Factory plans could include cafe, maker-space, and ‘gloryholes’” (referring to a type of glassblowing instrument). Others, like “Beyond Bigfoot: A Look Inside Alexandria’s Cryptozoology and Paranormal Society” delve into the wackier side of life in Northern Virginia — especially in Alexandria.
“Arlington is a lot of fun, there’s a lot of interesting stuff here, but Alexandria is special. Alexandria is completely unique,” he said.
For instance, that city is where Miles used to meet a source from City Hall in a parking garage — partly because it was near where the source worked, but also because “I think he, like me, had a flair for the dramatic,” Miles said.
Other sources in Alexandria weren’t so fond of Miles. He recalled that in his pre-Local News Now days, when he worked for the Alexandria Gazette, one man would angrily lock eyes with him at every City Council meeting.
The reporter liked that, too.
“That gives me almost as much joy as people being happy about the articles that we wrote, because you’re not doing your job if everybody is happy,” he said.
On a more serious note, Miles said he strove to strike a balance between different aspects of journalism: pursuing stories with real news value, but also acknowledging the need to pull in readers; covering an enormous number of stories, but also taking the time for more in-depth ones.
In some of those heavier stories — like a recent piece on a rock ‘n’ roll memorial service for a late Arlington musician — Miles said he appreciated the chance to capture people’s “full lives” and “convey to the rest of the world who this person was.”
“Ten years from now, when you look back at what’s going to have the most impact on the community, it’s not going to be the fact that you had 10 stories a day on upcoming festivals and activities. It’ll be the one story about something really meaningful and impactful,” he said.
The shift to FOX 5 will be a fresh adventure for Miles, but not completely new. While working at Local News Now, he regularly made appearances on TV and would even make trips to the station’s Bethesda studio, at times.
He recalls the sense of awe he felt when visiting for the first time.
“The closest thing I experienced to that before was walking into the command hub of a battleship,” Miles said. “You walk in, and it’s just a range of, like, electronic equipment, people working in their stations, everybody like, kind of, chatting across the room about stories that are going on … I was like, holy s—. This is a newsroom.”
Miles described a level of energy and “thrill” in TV that he has rarely seen anywhere else.
“It is overwhelming in the best possible way, and I was just hooked,” he said.
As a writer and producer, Miles will be writing scripts and putting shows together, in a position that he compares to conducting an orchestra: “filling in news stories from here and here and here, and bringing that all together into a symphony.”
And that’s all very well. But will he have as much fun as he does here?
“I think it’ll be a very different kind of fun,” Miles said. “There are lots of things I already know I’m going to miss about this job.”
