Compassion is the core of community
Part of the joy of being a journalist is that no two days are the same. You can wake up one morning, with a boring office day ahead of you, only to be catapulted to a breaking news scene mid morning.
That’s the name of the game. The pace that drives our pulse. Be prepared for anything, always.
Monday, July 12, 2021, was a totally different story. I was not prepared for any of it. I’d overslept when I opened my eyes to my phone blinking and beeping furiously. Images of a burning Brookside Mall shocked me from my slumber.
The rest of that week is one big blur of trying to write stories with tears streaming down my face. Composing myself enough to make another phone call to a business owner who just lost his livelihood. Trying hard to conceal my tears from the person on the other end of the line.
As journalists, a large part of our job is to remain objective. To stay cool headed in the face of chaos. We arrive at gruesome accident or murder scenes and, for the sake of our job, put our emotion aside to gather the facts.
It would be a mistake to say we don’t feel, because we do. Someone close to me says, ‘leave your heart at the door’. Pick it up on your way out. We debrief back at the office, or later that night.
But that second week in July last year, wasn’t so simple. This wasn’t a crime scene I could walk away from. My home town was on fire. My city was being looted. The people that lost everything were my community.
It’s hard to remain outside of something you’re so integrally a part of. And yet, if ever there was a need for reliable, accurate news, that week was it.
So with breaking hearts we carried on breaking the news. Fire, fire everywhere. And not just real flames, but the wild fires of fake news we had to chase and put out before they did any more harm.
It was unprecedented territory. The closest to a war situation I hope to come. Walking through a kilometre-long line of armed men at community blockades made me feel a different kind of uneasy. A hopeless situation with so much at stake. And yet, so much hope came out of it.
For the rest of the year, reporting on the July unrest almost became a newsroom beat. It’s a long road to recovery, and part of the collective healing comes from communities uniting, committing to picking up the pieces together.
During that week, compassion was the glue that connected communities. Out of the unrest came a resilience, born out of tragedy, but rather than the circumstance, it was the response that made all the difference to where we are now, a year on.
Reflecting on the July unrest, I’m reminded that, when writing about and reporting for my community, I will always be connecting to my roots. It’s both a privilege and a responsibility.
That’s what makes me so proud of the product our news team produces, week after week. Come rain, shine, Covid-19 or civil unrest.
One of the things the July unrest taught me is that journalists shouldn’t shy away from compassion. Compassion and emotion can be as much of a strong point as objective neutrality. Especially, for community journalists like us, who serve the people we live alongside.
Perhaps, compassion is at the core of what we do, rather than an after thought.