Earlier this week I was leaving the building where I teach on campus. Just ahead of me, about to leave was another instructor. Dr. Music, we’ll call him, was a little frantic. “Hey,” he says to me “there’s a big fire down the block.”
Instinctively I sniffed the air and agreed with him. As bizarre as this may sound, house fires have a very distinctive smell. There’s always a hint of wood smoke like you’d smell at a cookout or BBQ joint. On top of that there’s the pungent, almost cloying smell of a chemical fire. Burning plastic, and whatever other synthetic materials the contents of the home on fire might be made of. Why do I know this our might ask? It’s from my tenure in television news. Over the decades I covered literally hundreds if not a thousand different structure fires. It was part of the job.
Dr. Music, about to get into his car and drive away, implored me- “Really, if you walk to that corner (he pointed) just look to the left and you’ll see all the smoke. It’s a pretty big fire.” I gave Dr. Music a half-hearted smile with my response… “Honestly? I’d rather not.” I think Dr. Music was genuinely shocked. People are supposed to want to see things like this aren’t they? It’s the reason for rubberneckers on the highway when there’s a crash. It’s why anything surrounded by crime scene tape tends to draw the attention of an entire neighborhood plus anyone else around. It’s why high speed chases televised by helicopter are carried by any cable channel that purports to be a news outlet.
I went on to explain my answer to Dr. Music stating “You know that for years… literally three decades I was a cameraman. Part of my job was to go out and cover tragic events like this fire. At this point in my life, nobody is telling me that I have to go therefore I choose to ignore it entirely. If it’s important enough, I’m sure I’ll get the information from the news” You know those cartoons where a light bulb goes on over the character who just got an idea? I think when Dr. Music understood my refusal that there was a little cartoon lightbulb that appeared over his head. He nodded in recognition and drove off.
I don’t want to sound negative. I apologize if this has come off that way. I am truly grateful for the career I had as a photojournalist. It taught me everything that I now teach the students at my community college and then some.
There absolutely is a need for the news. If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t teach it. I think that local news, especially, is integral to keeping people informed about what is happening in their community. I have always believed that tv should be a public service. Our founding fathers saw it as the fourth pillar of society… the watchdogs that would expose corruption and injustice. I agree with that wholeheartedly, and I pray that every person who claims to be a journalist does too. Chasing news does take its toll on a person both physically and mentally, and I feel like I had my fill of it from 1994 to 2024.
Today, I’m so incredibly grateful that these days I get to choose my own assignments. I can still practice my beloved art of videography and video editing without having to witness the bad things that happen to good people on a daily basis. Nowadays my focus is more on video production for small businesses, real estate brokers, and all kinds of social media marketing. I feel like I’m still serving people, albeit a very different group of people.
I still pop out to newsworthy events dragging a camera from time to time. Just because I don’t report to a station anymore doesn’t mean that my curiosity has gone away. My quote when pressed on why is usually “you can take the boy out of the newsroom, but you can’t always take the newsroom outta the boy. “The difference is that what I attend is my choice. What I cover are things that are interesting to me even after all the time I was assigned to cover thousands of different stories. Another fantastic thing about some of these events is getting to see current and former students who find local news coverage equally as important.
ts
Leave a Reply