By Erik Harris, sports editor
BIRMINGHAM – The time came to set competition aside.
On Wednesday, news anchors, producers, directors, family and friends gathered at Prince of Peace Catholic Church in Hoover to say a final goodbye to Christopher Sign, who passed away at the age of 45 on June 12, 2021.
Sign was known for his time at the desk as a weeknight anchor for ABC 33/40. He worked for the station as a reporter in the late 90’s and early 2000s before leaving for another position in Phoenix, Ariz., where he remained for the next 13 years. He returned to 33/40 in 2017, according to the station.
Thanks to help from local competitors, Sign’s ABC family was able to attend his funeral on Wednesday afternoon. The station later thanked WBRC, WVTM and WIAT for helping out during a difficult time.
Hunter Stone, the Assistant News Director at WVTM13, says the station agreed to share video footage from stories it covered that day. WBRC and WIAT provided similar assistance on Wednesday.
“We just want to give them a little bit of a break, so they can take their foot off the pedal and go to the funeral and not have to worry about (work),” said Stone. “It was the right thing to do.”
“We’re competitors on a day-to-day basis, but we all go through the same things and when something this tragic happens to somebody, we want to lend a hand,” Stone continued. “This is a small, small business and when something like this happens, you just want to do anything you can to help them get through it.”
WIAT CBS 42 News Director Rob Martin says it was a joint effort that brought it all together.
“Shannon Isbell and Sue Stevens – they’re the news directors at channel 6 and channel 13 – and we coordinated together when we heard about Christopher’s service being held on Wednesday,” said Martin. “We decided that we would all get together and help them with news stories, whether it was a press conference or even spot news, we would shoot it and obviously we would use it, but we would send it to them for their use.
“We’re all local journalists who compete every day, but many of these reporters and photographers are also friends from either working together at the same station for a time or just seeing each other every day on a story, so when something like this tragedy happens, it certainly hits us all.”
According to WBRC Fox 6, the station provided video footage and story information with 33/40 during the visitation and service Wednesday, which was live streamed by a WBRC photographer.
“We did it because it’s the right thing to do and I know they would do the same thing for us,” said WBRC News Director Shannon Isbell.
Thanks to our friends at WBRC and WVTM in Birmingham for helping our news department today; allowing ABC 33/40 employees to attend Christopher Sign’s funeral. Very classy.
— James Spann (@spann) June 16, 2021