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Dozens of area newspapers come to our office each week, and in exchange our newspaper goes to the offices of those dozens of newspapers every week. It was hard for me to unfold one of the newspapers that came last week, a newspaper that displayed not only one photograph, but two photographs of vehicles that involved area fatalities.
I felt sadness for those families that lost a member in those motor vehicle accidents. I felt sick knowing that if they went to Kwik Trip to grab a coffee in the morning that they were reminded in an awful way of their family member's death.
On Thursday afternoon, several staff members, myself included, gathered around the police scanner as a heartbreaking call came in to Iowa County Dispatch. My stomach was in knots as the dispatcher spoke of the tragic details, and my heart sank tremendously when we searched the address, and I immediately recognized the name.
What upset me even more was knowing that these sensitive details would be plastered all over the internet within minutes. I hesitantly pulled up Facebook and I was very disappointed and disgusted in what I read.
We, as newspaper professionals, are members of this community, and we grieve when someone is taken from this community. Our heart aches for the emergency personnel who are called to these tragic situations. We try our best not to falter when a good teacher is cut due to budget restraints, or when an important program has to be discontinued because there is no other way it can be sustained. It is hard. And this past week was an extremely hard one for me.
Sure, a police scanner post on Facebook will get a lot of hits, but as long as I am working at this newspaper, there will never be a post on our Facebook page with sensitive details of a police scanner call. And sure, photographs of an accident might sell a couple more papers but there will never be printed in this newspaper a photograph of an accident in which a local person was killed.
It is called empathy. Some may argue that it is a weakness in this line of work. But I certainly do not feel that way.
So many hearts are broken in this community, so please have a heart, be kind and think before you do or say.