Gun violence in schools is a fact of life in today's America.
That's the one thing none of us can deny.
My wife teaches in the School District of the City of York. She has for four years. Before that she taught in the South Western School District, at Catholic schools, in her home town of Waverly, N.Y. and in Rochester, N.Y.
I have no doubt in my mind, after watching my wife care for me and our son, that she would lay down her life for a student.
Too often, in today's world, we vilify teachers. We complain that they're public servants and shouldn't make so much money. We moan and groan about their pensions. We argue about what they can teach our kids.
Sure, there are some bad teachers out there, but most of them deserve more respect than we as a society give them.
A couple times each year, I'm reminded about how dedicated teachers are. I'm not just talking about the tragedies that engross our nation.
It's not that rare that the police scanner at work says that Molly's district has been locked down.
When that happens my heart aches.
Terrifying thoughts run through my head: Is she safe? Is she suffering? Are her students safe? Is she lying in a puddle of blood?
More than once, I've left my desk at our newspaper to try to get composure.
This week, I started to cry while talking with two of my best friends at the paper because I knew there were husbands and wives out there who were living my absolute worst nightmare.
I bring this up because many people are questioning the media's involvement in massacres.
People keep citing Roger Ebert's famous post reflecting on the Columbine killing (Shameless plug: check out our newspaper's blog, where several staff members discussed being a journalist dealing with a tragedy).
As a member of the media, I think this is an important dialogue to have.
One thing I do want people not in the media to understand is that the real journalists out there - and yes, there are exceptions to every rule - are not trying to drive web hits, circulation, money or awards.
It's just a sad fact that more people pay attention to us when bad things happen.
But blaming us for that is like blaming the fireman for the fire he is responding to.
Let me take you through the actual process in a newsroom when something like this happens.
Interestingly, I filled in at work for our morning web editor on Friday at our paper, The York Daily Record. That meant my shift started at 6 a.m.
At 7 a.m., we heard that a bus was involved in a car crash. In the newsroom at that time were myself, our columnist (who was working as a reporter), our executive editor and our opinion editor.
The first thing you think when you hear about a call like this is, "God, I hope those kids are OK."
But you do get a rush. Why? Something is happening and you want to make sure, deep down in your core, that everything you report to the public is correct. You feel an intense responsibility
Our reporter made a call to the county's emergency management system dispatchers. I called a photographer to see if she could go to the scene.
Moments later, our reporter sent me the text of a brief story that we could put on our website. It stated the facts as we knew them at that time: a crash occurred, where it occurred, when it occurred.
I double-checked some of the facts with our archives, making sure we had the road and township correct. Then I put our story on social media: Facebook and Twitter.
Why do we do this? The public has a right to know about what's going on in its community. Parents should know that children could be danger. Motorists should know the road they take to work might be shut down. In light of what happened in Connecticut, this aspect of our job has come under scrutiny.
Shortly after the brief made it onto our website, our photographer called. A police officer told her 20 students were sent to area hospitals.
That's when things changed for us. This wasn't a fender bender. She sent in some photos of a very badly damaged vehicle that was involved in the crash.
We decided to send our reporter out to the scene.
I'm sure a similar scenario occurred in Connecticut. Reporters and photographers responded to a story where children were in danger, but assumed it wasn't that horrific. Then they started to get a picture of what was going on.
In our newsroom, we'd already told people about the crash so we did the next logical thing. We updated the story. Police said 20 students were hurt. We changed our headline. We changed our story.
This is what happens in today's world where information comes out all the time. Our paper operates under the premise that as soon as we know it, you know it.
That's much different than 20, 15 and even 5 years ago. Back then, we updated our websites a couple of times a day, but the finished stories appeared in the paper.
Now, we update stories as we get the facts.
The people involved in our crash were lucky. There were no serious injuries, police said.
But what if there were? Should we have stopped reporting when we had already told people about the crash? Of course, we wouldn't identify the victims until the authorities did. People don't need to find out from us that a loved one died. But that wouldn't stop us from reporting the story because people need to know.
Now that you know how these stories are reported, let's try to tackle the issue of whether or not the media's coverage of these events propagates further events.
I'm not going to pretend to know the answer to that.
But we should as an industry discuss it. I'm not saying we should change the way we do our jobs.
What's the alternative? Do we not tell people when bad things happen? When their children are in danger?
Should we not say the name of the killer? If that's the case, why report the names of any criminal?
Or terrorist? I've often worried about our naming terrorist organizations after bombings because that's us giving them what they want. Aren't we feeding their beastly desires?
The really tough question for us is that even if we are, is it ethical for us to not report the names of society's villains?
Aren't we required to tell our audience everything we know on the record? If not, and we start hiding things, would the public ever trust us?
Now, I'm glad I work at a newspaper organization, where we're not talking on TV in front of people 24 hours a day. That means we don't speculate or prognosticate. We report the facts as we know them.
While I often mock TV news, I readily admit they don't have it easy during disasters like this.
They're telling you, the viewer, something bad happened. But, while they don't have all the info, they are still on screen in front of you. You presumably want answers.
That being said, we've seen several instances this year - such as the Supreme Court health care decision - where members of the media got things wrong because they rushed.
It's a pressure filled business. We owe it to you to get things right. I bring up the health care thing because you could see how what went wrong did so because people didn't cross their T's and dot their I's.
That's their fault. They failed you.
But think about some of the things that went wrong this weekend. Facts weren't wrong because the media made them up or because they didn't double check their sources. They were wrong because the sources were wrong.
The sources were wrong because, just like an episode of "Law and Order," the police, let alone the media, don't have all the answers the moment a tragedy occurs.
In this day and age, where you probably first saw this story as a link on Facebook, we all put too much of a premium on immediate information.
And we're still learning how to accommodate those needs.
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