News Overload

For my birthday, I got the new memoir Reporter by Seymour Hersh, one of my idols in journalism. Trouble is, I can’t seem to open it and start reading. I’m afraid I'm on news overload.

This weekend’s bizarre “revenge stabbing” of kids at a Boise, Idaho, birthday party hit too close to home – literally. The apartment complex is 2 miles from my house.

And last week’s ambush of the Capital Gazette newsroom in Annapolis, Md., brought to mind every newsroom I’ve sat in over the years, typing away in a deadline-induced trance, oblivious to distractions.

Watching both senseless tragedies unfold, I found myself wiping away tears.

If my time in the news biz has been any indication, you see and learn a lot of things that sometimes, you wish you hadn’t. You tick people off for telling the truth, who then decide they hate your guts. Many reporters are stalked or threatened. I was, too.

I’ve never met a journalist who was – as our current U.S. President so arrogantly puts it – an “enemy of the people.” I’ve met reporters who were more likeable than others, or less tactful. But for the most part, they’re people with a built-in curiosity about life, who care deeply about the communities they cover and believe they can make a positive difference with their work.

It’s great that there are resources, such as the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma at the University of Washington, to consult for some guidance in tough times. But mostly, you make your own way and learn to cope with the stress, however it presents itself.

It’s also helpful to remember that nothing terrible I saw outweighed the kindness and decency I also witnessed, time and again, covering the news.