The journalists were vultures—unsympathetic, news-hungry, inescapable—and the townspeople were their targets. talking and saw my notebook, she covered her ears with her hands and then waved them in the air, screaming at us to stop. I thanked Diana, put my notebook away and left. The moment nagged me as I walked to the town Starbucks, where more than two dozen journalists were crammed, re-caffeinating and typing away on laptops and phones. But it did not stop me from sending the quotes to my editors. Some journalists—including me—argue that telling stories about the people impacted by an event like the school shooting is a good thing. Talking is therapeutic, we tell our subjects. It is an opportunity to tell the world about the children you love and the town you chose to raise them in. Good stories have the capacity to increase compassion in the world. But most people just wanted to be left alone, even at times when photographers outnumbered them ten to one. Jonny Dymond, a foreign correspondent for the BBC, reported that one man told him, “Go home, please, go home, all of you.” And when ABC News producer Nadine Shubailat reached out to a Sandy Hook resident for a comment over Twitter, he tweeted back, simply, “eat a dick.” The responses I personally received to my interview requests ranged from despondent to outright hostile. One evening, as I approached the house where one victim’s family lives, a state trooper pointed a flashlight square in my face and threatened to arrest me if I didn’t leave immediately. “Thank you for understanding,” I said apologetically as I hurried back to my car. “No, I don’t understand,” he shot back. “I don’t understand what you’re doing here at all.” I had hoped that mindfulness and courtesy would be enough to get me through Sandy Hook. When three men—from three generations of a Newtown family—leapt at me from the dark to block my path to the front door of a house where a victim’s parents lived, I apologized to them immediately for being a bother. And I kept apologizing as I asked them three times to tell me about the child close to
them who died, and they refused three times. As I turned to leave, one man found a few words to say. He told told me I was one of the nicer journalists they’d met so far. But that’s not really a compliment in my world, where prickliness and persistency are considered as valuable as accuracy and clean writing. What do you do when the needs of your editors, your publication, and your audience directly clash with the needs of your subjects—the people you really depend on to bring life, context, and meaning to your work? Some journalists and media researchers proposed partial solutions, like a moratorium on interviewing children, who may not be capable of fully consenting to talk, especially when cameras are already pointed in their faces. Slate’s Emily Bazelon suggested stories like Newtown should be covered using a press pool—a system by which multiple news outlets send just one reporter, photographer or videographer to an event, and then share the results. My advice might be too simple, or incomplete. What I’ve learned so far in my fledgling career is that covering tragedy requires balance. Go to the scene, but don’t bring three vans, heat generators, and a tent with the company logo, as one media outlet did. When people are visibly praying, crying, or engaged in a moment of silence, hang back. When they politely decline to an interview, politely thank them. When they raise their hands or voices, apologize for taking up time and space in their lives, even if it was just for a moment. Yes, the sidewalk is public—but that doesn’t mean you aren’t still a guest, in the cosmic sense, even if no one invites you into their living rooms. Journalists are used to being beholden to their readers and beholden to the truth. But when it comes to tragedy, everyone should remember that the people involved never asked to be.
Good stories have the capacity to increase compassion in the world.