On Aug. 19, viewers of Roanoke, Va.’s, WDBJ 7 television station witnessed the on-air murder of 24-year-old reporter Alison Parker and 27-year-old cameraman Adam Ward.
Parker was in a relationship with a fellow journalist. He said they were very much in love and were moving in together. Ward had recently become engaged to a producer who was in the studio at the time of the shooting and witnessed her fiance’s murder.
The two were about the same age as some of our former interns would be now, and about the same age I was when I began working for this newspaper. While we did not know the victims personally, our staff has known reporters like them, who bring light, joy and humor into their newsrooms. In the last week, I have compared what I have read about their characters to some of the young people who have shared our three newsrooms over the years.
Parker and Ward were shot and killed by a former reporter who had been fired from the station two years ago. Ward turned the camera toward the gunman after being shot, revealing a suspect standing above the victims. The gunman himself filmed the shooting, too, later posting videos online while on the run. The live feed and the shooter’s videos were posted all over the Internet from news sites to Facebook to Twitter, and millions of people witnessed the fatal incident.
In a public statement, WDBJ 7 General Manager Jeff Marks said he had to put aside his journalist’s impartiality and said he wasn’t sure if he wanted the suspect to live or die. A few hours later, the gunman shot himself while fleeing police and died at a local hospital.
As journalists, we dedicate ourselves to justice, unbiased reporting and neutral coverage. We believe in the rule of law and the ideal that our republic’s legal and court system should work fairly, when governed by good and honest men and women. We trust that our judges and juries will put aside their personal prejudices and weigh cases on the facts alone. Of course, any system relying on human judgment is inherently flawed, and thus needs constant oversight, exposure, investigation, criticism and public review. Even so, we still believe in the ideals of our republic, that all people are innocent until proven guilty, deserve a fair trial and the expectation of reasonable doubt.
Yet we are as human as anyone else. The human animal inside us all demands primitive revenge, an eye for an eye. When we witness the murder of a friend or loved one, we want vengeance, the type of moral justice to do what we deem right, sometimes even in spite of the law. Deep in human blood burns an avenging spirit, the kind of passion for righteous vengeance that drove civilians to enlist after the attacks on Lexington, Fort Sumter, Pearl Harbor and on 9/11 and propels people to defend each other even at great risk to themselves.
It is hard for journalists to maintain the balance between logic and passion when violence hits so close. Our colleagues in Roanoke are struggling with this in ways we dread contemplating and I hope they ignore the inevitable politicization of this tragedy.
We join with thousands of other print, radio and television journalists to offer our sincerest sympathies. We commend the WDBJ newsroom for continuing to cover the story for their viewers even as the reporters on air and in the studio worked to suspend their grief. We hope that time assuages the anguish of their bereavement, leaving them with only the cherished memories of their colleagues and friends, Alison Parker and Adam Ward. May they rest in peace.
