"Another day at the office"

Earlier I posted the below picture to Facebook with the caption, "Another day at the office ..."

I work for a small newspaper as the police and fire reporter. What you're looking at here is a nearby apartment building that caught on fire. Thankfully, the building was mostly vacant, and the few people who did live there were safely evacuated -- otherwise I wouldn't have posted the picture.

This marks the second building I've seen pretty much burn to the ground for work. Fires this size are pretty rare for me to cover. However, I do see a lot of tragic, sad and otherwise unpleasant events and hear stories of the same nature for my job.

Occurrences that I cover on a daily basis include: thefts, burglaries, "criminal mischief" (vandalism). Weekly: car accidents, assaults. Monthly: sentencings of criminals, police pursuits, fires (usually small), drug busts, other stuff I'm probably forgetting. Every few months: criminal trials, murders.

I worry sometimes (actually I worry all the time, story of my life) that I might be becoming emotionally numb to the tragedy I often see. That the fires, highway accident deaths and assault victims will become "just business" to me and evoke no emotional reaction. 

I'm afraid that I'll go out to a car accident that I hear of on the scanner, see blood and guts on the pavement, and not bat an eye. Maybe I'll shrug and just think, "another day at the office."

Perhaps having the ability remain unaffected by tragedy would help me be a better reporter -- I don't know. But I'm glad that seeing so much tragedy in a relatively short period of time hasn't had that effect on me yet. I hope it never does.

My journalism professors taught Herbert Morrison's reporting of the 1937 Hindenburg disaster as a cautionary tale. People want to hear the news reported to them by someone calm and collected, they said. There's no room to exclaim, "Oh, the humanity!" That's not professional.

But there were a couple times during my internship at the Dallas Morning News that my boss handed me an assignment, saying, "Here, you do this. It's too upsetting for me." They were both stories about young children being horribly abused by one or both of their parents. ... Of course, these stories were upsetting to me, too. Looking back on this, it makes me feel better to know that I've seen a successful journalist who wasn't completely devoid of emotion when it came to work.

You have to find a balance. You can't be too squeamish or too sensitive to do this job. If you are, then I imagine every work day would be exhausting. But you shouldn't be entirely unaffected, either. It's OK to be human.

Being a woman, I worry about coming across as too sensitive. I cried exactly once on my job. I ended up being most upset not about what happened to make me cry, but about the fact that I cried at all. Easily 95 percent of everyone I talk to for my crime and fire beat - whether that be police officers, firefighters or lawyers - are men. I don't want to seem like a weepy, fragile girl to them.

I almost witnessed an execution. Actually, there is still a slight chance that I might, depending on what the Courts do. I had been asked by my bosses to be a media witness; because, again, one of my bosses didn't think they would be able to handle the experience emotionally.

Had the convicted man not been given a stay of execution, then I would have watched him die by now. At this moment I'd be typing up a news story instead of a personal blog post.

It wasn't an easy decision, but I told my bosses I would do it (my thought process that led me to that decision could fill another blog post). And for the past few months, I wondered on a nearly daily basis what the experience would be like. Did I make the right decision? When will it be too late to back out? Will this experience change me?

I searched for articles about executions and sent emails to the journalists listed in the bylines. I told them that I would be witnessing an execution for the first time, was nervous about it, and wondered if they could supply me with any and all advice. I received responses from everyone, and all were helpful. One that stuck out to me, though, went like this:

"I have covered 11 executions and have one next month to cover as well. I have been doing my job a long time and have seen a lot of things. Witnessing an execution is never easy, and if it is, then you have some issues."

Although he was confirming my fears about witnessing the execution being emotionally taxing, I was comforted by this. Even in this industry, it's OK to be disturbed. It's OK to not treat such dark events as just "another day at the office."