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A friend of mine -- a former colleague from the newspaper where we both once worked -- includes a quote from the late Washington Post columnist Mary McGrory at the bottom of his emails: “I have always felt a little sorry for people who didn't work for newspapers.”
We who have had the privilege of working for a newspaper know exactly what she means. That is not to denigrate people who have never worked at newspapers or to pity them. For all we ink-stained wretches know, other workplaces might be just as special.
Still, the deadline pressure, the competition, the long, arduous hours and the camaraderie and dedication that come out of all of that is something newspaper people take for granted while they are in the thick of it. And when they are no longer in the thick of it, they remember it later as the best years of their lives.
The unique ability of a newspaper staff under extreme pressure to rise to the occasion was brought home Friday morning when pictures and news stories began to circulate on social media and on TV news about that day's edition of the Capital Gazette.
That was the paper in Annapolis, Maryland, where a man fatally shot five employees on Thursday. Photo above: Friday's front page.
Elsewhere in stories and pictures, you saw editors and reporters working outside their newsroom since they had to evacuate their building. One photo had editors using the back flatbed of a pickup truck as a makeshift desk.
They were working on stories and page layouts -- trying to figure out the best way to play their pictures and stories, and at the same time pay tribute to their slain colleagues.
The professionalism displayed by some journalistic organizations at such times is mind-boggling to many people. But those of us who have worked in newsrooms understand it. Somehow, the need to tell the story takes over, no matter how heartbreaking or close to home the story is.
At the same time, even a newsroom veteran has to marvel at the dedication of the Capital Gazette staff who reported on their own massacre.
I remember feeling the same sense of awe in August 2015 when a young TV reporter and her cameraman -- each in their 20s -- were both fatally shot in Roanoke, Virginia, while she did a routine live shot for a segment on summer tourism that was then airing on their station's morning show.
In this instance, the newsroom at this station -- WDBJ -- was forced to report on the unthinkable, and they did so for several days.
One of the similarities between that Roanoke TV station and the Annapolis newspaper is that they were both local media entities serving smaller markets.
These instances of tragedy remind us that high-quality journalism is not restricted to bigger news organizations that serve wider audiences. Professionals can be found in newsrooms at all levels of news media and in all places -- from Roanoke to Annapolis.
The kind of journalism that people practice at places like the Capital Gazette and WDBJ is what we are at risk of losing as emerging media overtake legacy newspapers and TV stations.
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July 2, 2018 at 09:44AM
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