Responding as a journalist

Last Tuesday, a little before 10 a.m., I looked out the window of the physics club room on Freeman’s second floor, saw one smoking tower of the World Trade Center, and thought, "Who’s covering this for The Ram?"

After stopping by my room to grab my camera (as an afterthought, I figured it might be a good idea to contact my parents), I returned to Freeman, peered out that same window through my viewfinder and suddenly realized that the tower I wanted to capture on film was the one I’d just seen collapse on TV only a few minutes before; I’d known it had fallen, but that fact hadn’t quite registered yet. My first reaction, when it did, was to be chagrined that I had missed the shot.

It’s funny what years of journalism will do to your instincts. You don’t even realize that it’s happening, but you learn to be excited by breaking news (no matter how tragic), to stay calm in the face of disaster (no matter how staggering), and to wait your turn to curl up in a corner and cry.

Last Tuesday, I took pictures of people lining up at the pay phones trying to contact their loved ones, weeping in front of the TV coverage and filling the University Church to look toward God for answers. Meanwhile, my concerns lay in fixing the shutter speed properly, focusing quickly and finding the best vantage point for each shot; these were essential to the task to which I had committed myself, and were therefore my priorities.

You see, there is a temporary comfort that comes with a camera, a notebook and a purpose. They create a little bubble that can shelter you from absorbing the immensity of what you see and hear, what you capture on film and in quotes. It saves your sanity for you until you have the luxury of losing it.

It can be a dangerous bubble, though, because sometimes you forget that other people aren’t inside. You expect them to abandon their passions and assess the situation as objectively as you do. Or, at the very least, to understand – even admire – your objectivity and accommodate you accordingly. This expectation is often poorly received.

Indeed, one of the primary complaints lodged against journalists (or "the media" as they seem to prefer when accusing us of some iniquity, like a mother calling a child by its middle name when it’s in trouble) is that we are too insensitive. We are charged with heartlessness for not respecting others’ emotions and not displaying our own. One Ram Van driver turned off the radio news broadcast last Tuesday morning because he didn’t think the announcer sounded upset enough. Many people on campus wondered why The Ram was still in production when the world was ending 20 miles away.

The reason lies in our very definition: to call your newspaper a "journal of record" – or to call yourself a "journalist" – implies a commitment to seizing, unraveling and disseminating everything that is newsworthy.

It is our mission to record the events of our day, portraying them as completely and accurately as possible. To tiptoe is to fail.

So the reporter must go boldly, take shocking photos and ask probing questions. Although overzealousness may be criticized, timidity is unforgivable. Any doubts you may have, you must answer later, after the deadline is past and you’ve done your job; I do so now.

Last Tuesday, I struggled to adequately cover students’ reactions without callously intruding upon their grief. I realized that after six years, I still have trouble gauging the range of my journalistic resolve. Perhaps it is because I’m so new at this.

After all, for all my insights, I must confess that I am not even an experienced reporter. Sure, I’ve walked through ashes while doing interviews about an arson, done investigative stories about drugs on Fordham’s campus, and even had a picture I took published in the New York Post. But I’ve never had to get a story that put my life in danger, never had to walk among the dead, never had to force a camera or microphone into someone’s face to ask about how their life has just been shattered.

Sometimes, I yearn to have the chance to prove I could. Maybe that’s why I’m going to be a physicist when I grow up.

(published in The Ram, 20 September 2001)