Tribute to journalists

-30That’s the way we used to end newspaper stories. Type -30- at the bottom. Everyone knows to look for no more.

So “-30-” to Alison Parker and Adam Ward, good and faithful young servants to news, their last work for Roanoke TV, ironically doing a softball piece at a water park with a Chamber of Commerce representative pushing tourism, early in the morning (“TV Viewers Witness Tragedy,” Aug. 27).

Did they even have an inkling it would be their last news piece, that their intendeds would be without significant others before noon? Ages 24 and 27, two score years younger than I, could they have guessed they would have no more days? When they were hit by the flying lead, did their whole lives flash before their minds’ eyes?

The final victory: Adam, as he, pierced by bullets, his life ebbing away, fell to the ground, shot the video of not only his killer’s face but also that of that slayer pointing his murder weapon. A newsman till the last, a Pulitzer pic, an ode to “Woodstein,” a nod to Murrow. Get the whole story ... until you can’t.

If these two were cops killed on the job, there would be cops in Spokane and Dubuque, in Boston and San Francisco, planning their trips to the funerals in Virginia. Hundreds of cops would line the way, fill the church. We don’t do that in news, and I didn’t even do TV news, and I’m retired. But my spirit will be there, lining the way, with a bowed head and heavy heart.

You done good, kids, you done good, Alison and Adam. The rest of us in news will take it from here. -30P.S. Shall the right of the people to keep and bear arms be infringed now? Is the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness still inalienable? JOHN O’BRIEN

Penn Hills

The writer is a retired PostGazette copy editor.