More After the Break

At one point in my life, I wanted to become a journalist. That changed in the spring of 1999 when journalists invaded my community in ways that were unforgivable at the time. To be fair, we were the exception back then. In 1999, a school shooting was instantly national news, especially one as destructive as ours.

Even so, they still felt intrusive. I remember walking into church on a Sunday morning after attending a classmate's funeral the day before and having someone offer me condolences because they saw me on the news the night before in a camera pan clip of funeralgoers. I did not even know that news crews were there.

I recently read Jen Maxwell's memoir, More After the Break, in which she revisits some of the news stories that she covered that have had the most impact on her over her years of reporting. Through her stories, I have gained a new perspective on those reporting through the tragic moments that happen. Looking back almost 24 years later, I see how the reporters and news crews were just doing their jobs. Some of our local news people were possibly trying to find information on their niece or nephew; maybe they were related to a staff member.

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I had never thought to give them that type of consideration before. Until I had read Maxwell's book, I still saw them as unfeeling, cold-hearted leeches. I mean, they had us on the news for months without any appearance of sympathy or understanding for our situation, so why wouldn't we hate them.

Maxwell's entire book is interesting, but the last two chapters really tugged at me. I cried, smiled, and saw the side of journalism that interested and intrigued me in my younger days. I remembered the pre-Columbine girl who wanted to tell stories about her community and the world around her. I never lost my desire to write or share stories about what is happening around me. And now that I realize that doing their jobs on the worst day of my life wasn't easy on the newscasters either, I feel bad that I have spent over 20 years being angry with them.