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They spend a lifetime covering city council meetings, working
the police beat and sitting through school board meetings. From
solid waste to sparkling rivers, they cover the news of their
community - whether it is along the beaten path or a few steps
into the road. But every now and then when their mind drifts away
from the day's events, nearly all journalists wonder what it would
be like if the big one ever came their way.
Some experts say that the number of critical incidents - school
shootings, hurricanes, bombings, floods - appears to be on the
rise. As the number increases each year, more and more journalists
are being dispatched to the scene of traumatic events. And, like
the reporters who covered the worst school massacre in history
at Columbine High School last year, they may sometimes find that
the experience was more than they bargained for.
"It scorched your soul," said Ann Schrader, a medical/science
reporter for The Denver Post who covered the massacre at Columbine
High School on April 20, 1999. "It made you really look down deep
within yourself."
On one side, she said, it was heartbreaking but on the other,
it was a huge news story.
"These were not just numbers, these were people," Schrader said.
"You had to try to be as sensitive as you could but yet still
be competitive and bring people the news."
After the first report of the shooting came across the newsroom,
Schrader headed for Swedish Hospital. She was halfway there when
she was rerouted to the triage site near the school. Later in
the day, she would report to nearby Leawood Elementary School,
where her daughter was a fourth-grade student at the time and
families of Columbine students waited to be reunited.
Like many of her colleagues, Schrader said her feelings about
the story changed over the course of the next year.
"It was tough," she said. "People in the community grew to hate
us. At times they would slam the door in our face and say nasty
things about us."
For Schrader, the constant intrusion into the lives of those
connected to the Columbine story eventually crossed the line.
On Oct. 26, 1999, Schrader said The Denver Post received a tip
that Carla Hochhalter, the mother of a Columbine student partially
paralyzed in the school shooting, had committed suicide. An editor
asked Schrader to go interview the woman's neighbors.
Ironically, Schrader was scheduled to attend a presentation at
Leawood Elementary School that same day for Mrs. Hochhalter's
daughter, Anne Marie. Instead of taking the editor's order, she
drove to the school where students had raised nearly $13,000 for
Anne Marie.
When Schrader reached the school, Anne Marie and her father were
about to leave. She realized that they had not yet been notified
of the suicide attempt. Minutes later, a call back to the newspaper
office confirmed Mrs. Hochhalter's death.
"When I went home, I told my husband what had happened and I
lost it," Schrader said.
Not long after arriving home, an editor at The Denver Post called
and again asked Schrader to interview the Hockhalters' neighborhood
and to get an accurate "picture" of the deceased woman.
"What are we going to get out of this?" an emotional Schrader
asked her editor. "I don't know if I can do this."
Although Schrader left her home to cover the assignment, she
never made it to the Hockhalters' neighborhood. Instead, she called
the office and told them she could not do the assignment. In turn,
she said editors assigned another reporter to the story, who unknowingly
knocked on the door of one of Mrs. Hockhalter's best friends,
who had not yet been notified of the death.
Back at the office, an emotionally charged Schrader asked the
city editor to consider bringing in counselors to get a better
understanding of what reporters were doing to members of the community
and to themselves. As a result, mental health counselors who had
been dealing with the victims' families were brought in to provide
insight into what the families were experiencing.
"Covering Columbine [taught] me that I've got to rely on my own
gut on what's right and what's wrong," she said.
Despite the physical and emotional strain of covering a traumatic
event, Schrader believes such an experience helped to improve
her skills as a journalist.
"I learned some things about approaching people and being sensitive
to them that grew out of the Columbine experience," Schrader said.
"When I was a young reporter, I always liked to have this line
between me and my subjects. Then, as I grew the line started to
be erased. I think that line has to be erased to be able to really
talk to people on a human level."
Continue to: Part II
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