Can journalists and grieving communities coexist in tragedy?
NEW YORK (AP) — As a knot of journalists stood across from a mortuary witnessing a funeral for a child killed in the Uvalde school massacre, some people passing by didn’t disguise their anger.
“Y’all are the scum of the Earth,” said one woman, surveying the cameras.
When tragedy comes to town in the 21st century, the media follows, focusing the world’s eyes on a community during its most difficult hours. Columbine, Sandy Hook, now Uvalde, Texas — the list of places synonymous with horrible mass killings keeps growing.
Journalists are called upon to explain what happened, and sometimes to ask uncomfortable questions in places where many people want to be left alone to grieve. Is it possible to do it better, to co-exist within a moment no one wants to be part of?
Tempers have flared in Uvalde. One female journalist was told, “I hope your entire family dies in a massacre.” Some are threatened with arrest for trespassing while on public property. A group called “Guardians of the Children” blocked camera views, often with the encouragement of police.
Yet there are also people like Ben Gonzalez, who approached reporters near the mortuary after hearing the woman lash out to say that she doesn’t speak for everyone. “Thank you for documenting this tragedy,” he said. “We’ll look back at the photos you take and appreciate it.”
The shady courthouse square in Uvalde has been dotted by canopies erected by TV news crews. Journalists have been stationed at Robb Elementary School, where the shooting took place, near a makeshift memorial piled with flowers, stuffed animals and messages. At the local Starbucks, where many journalists go to work, tables are set aside for Uvalde residents.
These are the typical signs of the invasion of journalists that accompany such events.
“I respect the wishes of people if they want me to leave,” said Guillermo Contreras, a senior writer at the San Antonio Express-news. “By the second day (after the shooting), the people were overwhelmed. The town has been overrun by reporters. There was pretty much nowhere you could go without running into the media.”
Like most colleagues, Contreras tries to be sensitive to what Uvalde’s people are enduring. He has a 10-year-old daughter at home.
“When you are at the epicenter of a situation like that, you really do need protection,” said Michele Gay, who lost her daughter Josephine in the Newtown school shooting a decade ago. “You are really not in a state of mind to be offering your feelings in front of the camera.”
Gay said she had no idea of the extent of attention given to the story until the state trooper assigned to protect her family drove them around town to see the memorials.