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You work under intense deadline pressure to cover all the angles and answer all the questions that your readers might have. And you think of the victims and those who love them.
When news broke Thursday about the horrific shootings at Northern Illinois University, I thought all of those thoughts.
And, when I couldn’t sleep at 2 a.m. Friday, I also thought about four friends who used to work in Winona and La Crosse who now lead the Daily Chronicle in DeKalb, Ill.
I thought of John Pfeifer, the former advertising director of the River Valley Newspaper Group who is publisher of the Daily Chronicle. He’s an amazing blend of intellect and energy — the guy who decided that his afternoon newspaper would publish a morning edition the day after the shooting while grabbing a reporter notebook and getting an exclusive interview with the president of the university.
I can’t tell you how many times we’ve sat together in a college auditorium, like the one in DeKalb, and watched our children perform in an ensemble. I also can’t tell you how many times we discussed the scourge of senseless violence.
There’s Jim Bowey, who was the award-winning photo editor of the Winona Daily News until he was promoted to editor of the Daily Chronicle about a year ago.
Jim is the guy who took those powerful photos in our series, “A Year to Live,” about the last days of a dying woman and her loving family. He also was an adjunct professor at Winona State University.
I remember when Jim served on a panel for our Youth Leadership program in Winona. He had high school juniors in tears when he discussed taking photos of the homeless people huddled in a bombed-out building in war-torn Bosnia, clutching the photos of the loved ones who had died in the conflict until the corners of the photos had been rubbed white with grief.
There’s Kate Schott, city editor of the Daily Chronicle. Kate is a WSU grad who used to cover higher education and the city of La Crosse for the La Crosse Tribune.
She’s a terrific young reporter and editor who leads the Daily Chronicle’s young reporters with strength and courage. She kept assuring them Thursday into Friday that they’ll never cover anything as awful as the campus shootings. I pray she’s right.
Finally, there’s Kate Weber, the talented photographer and reporter who just graduated from Winona State last spring.
It isn’t fair that someone so young has to return to a campus so soon for such an awful reason.
As the parent of a college student, and as someone who spends a lot of time with students and faculty at our local universities and technical colleges, I think a campus should be a safe place — physically as well as intellectually.
Senseless violence shouldn’t break out in a lecture hall.
Of course, it shouldn’t break out at all.
Covering such tragic, breaking news is a mix of adrenaline and caffeine and sorrow. When the deadline passes, there’s a sharp pain reminding you of the horror that you’ve just witnessed.
We don’t talk about it much in our business. We don’t talk about it enough.
There’s nothing glamorous about watching the bloody bodies carried out on a stretcher or interviewing the students who had witnessed the carnage in horror. Our staff knows all too well the challenges and the stress of covering a natural disaster that killed seven people in raging floodwaters last August.
It’s a popular — and ridiculous — notion that journalists just don’t care.
You wouldn’t say that if you’ve covered more than your share of homicides, fatal accidents, house fires and explosions and other tragedies.
You also wouldn’t say that if you’ve held a sobbing reporter in your arms after the first time he or she has had to cover that first, awful tragedy.
Jennifer Shilling, the state representative from La Crosse whose parents were gunned down in a robbery near Chicago more than 15 years ago, has introduced legislation to provide counseling to people who serve on juries and are forced to hear and witness the gruesome details of a criminal case as part of their civic duty.
She and I have talked about the toll that such an awful story can take on a journalist, too — and a police officer, an emergency medical technician, a hospital worker.
I’ve never told Jennifer this, but I vividly remember the news about her parents because I was working the city desk that awful night at the Quad-City Times in Davenport, Iowa. Little did I know that one day, I would get to know and admire the victims’ daughter for her courage.
In the DeKalb newsroom, I know that John Pfeifer has brought in counselors from the employee assistance program to work with his young staff. It’s something we’ve offered at our newspapers during tragic times.
I chatted briefly with Kate Schott on Friday. I told her how proud I am, watching all of the terrific coverage on www.daily-chronicle.com.
A short time later, Jim sent an e-mail saying: “Kate passed on your hello. Thank you for thinking of us — I’m very proud of our staff. I thought of you many times last night.”
Jim, you can’t possibly know how many times I’ve thought of all of you — and the senseless, awful story you’ve had to cover.
For a person who makes a living with words, I keep coming back to the same one.
Why?
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