Virginia Tech Massacre from the Anchor Desk

With a shaking hand on Christmas Eve 1984 I reached for the control board, turned on the microphone and read the weather.  There was probably no one listening.  The small 1,000 watt radio station powered down to about 250 watts at night.  No matter, my career as a broadcaster had begun.

In the time since then I have seen and done many things, gone many places and interviewed thousands of people.  From the anchor desk, I have talked to viewers about Columbine, Space Shuttle Disasters and of course the terrorist attacks of 9-11.  But until this week, I had never had the sensation I experienced in broadcasting the tragedy at Virginia Tech.

Countless people have asked, “What was it like to tell everybody what happened-“  “How were you able to handle that-“  They asked those questions about the other events too, but this one was different.

Like the EMT’s and other first responders, journalists must focus on the task at hand.  There is no time for sadness, worry or concern.  Believe it or not, the job is hard enough that it takes full concentration.  The task takes up all the energy you have.  There will be time for tears later.  When you are in the broadcast “zone” you stay there.  It’s a safe place to be in times of crisis.

On Monday, April 16, 2007, along with co-anchor Karen McNew, I was pretty much in that place.  Sometime during the 10 o’clock hour we began co-hosting our coverage with colleagues Jay Warren and Juliet Bickford.  At the time there was word of two shootings on the Virginia Tech campus with one person dead and perhaps a dozen or so wounded after two separate shootings.  This was a big story, and lots of information was coming into the newsroom.

In wall-to-wall coverage like that viewers actually see the newsgathering process.  As each new detail is learned it is reported with plenty of sourcing, so you know exactly where the information is coming from.  It is difficult to know what to report and what to hold, and that which is reported must be carefully explained.  Not only that, but since we are live, we need to think of things to say.  Like I said it takes a lot of concentration.

In that mode, we were filling time with what we knew until information from a news conference could be conveyed.

Suddenly there was a rush of feet behind us in the newsroom and some frantic looking faces.  A producer yelled to another staffer that 20 people were dead.  That is not the way we convey information to viewers.  So I waited until someone told us officially.  Someone did.  My heart began to sink, and my stomach literally got queasy.  We went to reporter Ashley Roberts who had just left the news conference; she was live on the phone.  I was hesitant to utter the number 20.  How could that be-  Just a moment ago it was one and some people injured.  How could it suddenly be 20-  I was certain there had been a communication breakdown in everyone’s haste to get the news on the air.  Not sure exactly how to proceed, I asked Ashley on the air, if in fact she had just heard that 20 people were dead, and she confirmed that.  “Yes,“ she said there were 20 casualties.  “Wait a minute,“ I said, “casualties can mean wounded.“  I asked if that was what she meant.  “No,“ Ashley said.  “Fatalities.  20 Fatalities.“

I tell you without hesitation or embarrassment that for the first time in my career, I was nowhere near my safe zone.  Tears threatened.  The queasiness in my stomach worsened.  Suddenly we were in the midst of the worst local story with which I have even been associated.  The worst mass killing in U.S. history.

In the next few hours the number jumped over 30, before settling on 33, including the shooter.

Regular watchers of NewsChannel 10 probably know that I have been a teacher at Virginia Tech for 11 years. I have friends on campus.  Many of my students are still there.  My oldest son had been accepted to Tech as a transfer student just the week before. At least half a dozen kids from my neighborhood go there.  There was almost no chance of being the “dispassionate” journalist.  (Karen, a Tech graduate, has family working on campus.  She was in a similar spot, if not worse)

During that first day there was no information about who was hurt or killed.  The fear and wonder was incredible.  But then, everyone in the community here has some tie to Tech.  My job is to convey information they need as best I can.  This was not the time to go to pieces.

One of the assignments I give my students every semester is a book report on a biography of a broadcast journalist.  Many write their papers on Walter Cronkite’s, A Reporter’s Life.  He tells the famous story of how he became choked up at the moment he had to share the death of President John F. Kennedy with the American people.  Reports Cronkite, “The words stuck in my throat.“

Honestly, I always thought he was being a little dramatic.  Not that he wouldn’t have been choked up, but he had been through wars, stared down the KGB in the Soviet Union, and talked to the nation for years.  And there’s that place “safe place” we broadcasters go when we have a job to do.

Now I understand.

By the time the day was done, Karen and I had been in front of the camera for 13 hours with only a 20 minute break.  During that time, we worked our way back into the zone.  We did our jobs as best we could, sorting hearsay from fact, segueing from reporter to reporter and filling time in-between.

Among all the stories that will be told of that day, this is among the least consequential.  I know that, but I appreciate you’re reading it.

Just writing it is the beginning of my own healing process.