There’s an axiom of the news business that a reporter should never make the story all about them. Valerie Bell, a television reporter at ABC affiliate WBMA in Birmingham, Alabama, broke that rule recently, but she can be forgiven. With the help of local police, she was lured to a marriage proposal staged by her fiance, Blake Bjornson.
A five-minute clip Bell posted to Instagram on July 1 shows Bell investigating an alleged report of a domestic violence incident near a lake.
As she begins to take notes, the police officer she’s talking to asks her to turn around. There was her fiance holding a ring box.
“Here I was, thinking I was going to breaking news,” Bell posted. “But little did I know, it was all part of a massive collaborative plan to pull off one heck of a surprise.”
The proposal was short and sweet.
“I’m just trying to process what just happened. Oh my god,” Bell said in the video as she realizes what’s happening. “I thought there were kids in the water. That’s so bad.”
Spoiler alert: She said, “Yes.”