Dear Editor: Reporting in the Field

Dear Editor,

I wholeheartedly agree with your editorial, not as a reader, but as a career reporter who also just happened to grow up in Whitehall.

There’s a time and place for everything and a small rural paper is neither when it comes to graphic photographs of tragic events.

I’ve been a beat reporter in northern California, covering police, fire and emergency news since 1999. My camera never leaves my side, my scanner is always on, and there are images in my head I wish I could replace with just the text.

As reporters and photographers, we take many photos at tragic scenes, not because we think it’s cool, but because it’s important information about an event that will stand the test of time. While the story may be later disputed, exaggerated or embellished, those photos will verify the facts we printed. That’s not to say all of them will make it to the paper and we exercise prudence in choosing which photos we print.

I’ve always said, smalltown newspapers are where the journalistic rubber meets the road because their reporters and photographers shop in the same stores, send mail from the same post offices and get their gas at the same stations as the people who read their work. Every fire, car crash, drowning, missing person or COVID death has the potential to affect a large percentage of people living in rural populations. Many smalltown reporters have the benefit of sensitivity because each fatality they report could have been someone they knew, too.

However, one can also have tact in the face of tragedy, as you’ve shown in your editorial. The who, what, why, where and when should always outweigh the shock of publishing an image that could haunt the minds of a friends and family members for years to come.

My hat’s off to you and your paper, as well as the paid and volunteer first responders who stand ready to keep Whitehall as safe as possible.

Tony Reed

Reporter/Photographer

The Trinity Journal