When you are in this business – the business of being a member of the media – your job is pretty straight forward. You look for news, you find it, compile information and analyze what your consumers need and then you distribute it to them. How we do that, however, can vary. How the Times-Union reporters gather and report news, for example, is different than what we would at the radio station. Not better or worse, just different. Newspaper can tell a story in a longer form, while radio can give you more stories in less of your time, and television helps you see the story while you are hearing details about it. We are all different, but we do have a few foundational things in common. We all want to be considered fair, reliable, trustworthy and efficient. And while we are all competitors to a certain extent, we are really all people just trying to do our jobs. It’s not really different than when people from the orthopedic companies are in the same room together, or when you see two coaches talking before a game. It’s really a unique job – being in the media – and yesterday we lost one of own. Denise Bohn-Stewart worked for a radio station up in southwestern Michigan after a very successful stint as a TV reporter for WSBT in South Bend. She was a woman who made it as an anchor/reporter, while raising a family of three kids, surviving breast cancer and becoming an advocate for the Susan G. Komen Foundation in the state of Michigan, and reinventing herself as a radio show host. That’s quite a life. That life ended yesterday. Denise was allegedly shot to death by her husband, who then turned the gun on himself in their St. Joseph, Michigan home. The kids, ages 8-10, were in the house at the time. One of them called 911. Someday, maybe, we will understand the “why” of the events of Tuesday. But today and for the next few days, it’s more about remembering the life that was taken and less about the facts and details of why. And grieving the loss of one of ‘us.’ I spent Tuesday afternoon contacting my friends who work at WSBT to share with them my shock, sadness and pain, not only for those three kids who lost their parents right before their very eyes, but for them too. Learning of the news that their friend and colleague was dead stunned that newsroom. There were no doubt a lot of wide-eyed stares across a room of cubicles and desks. We can all relate to that, right? The moment that you find out a tragedy has occurred like the one that happened yesterday would shake any workplace. It would be seared into the minds of everyone who was there, and the grieving process would begin within minutes of the initial shock. A good supervisor would likely tell his employees to take the rest of that day off to allow them time to process what had happened and allow the grieving to begin. But that’s where your job and our jobs are very different. When the crew from WSBT realized that the house they were rushing to set up their live trucks at was not just any other house and the name of the victim was not just a name on a note pad, there was no opportunity for them to stop and process it like any of you might. Instead, they were called upon to set their own emotions aside and report the story of this alleged murder-suicide like they would any other, except it wasn’t like those others at all. For hours they did what they do: they found the news story, they gathered information, they processed it as their training had taught them to, and then then the clock ticked 5 p.m. When the little red light went on yesterday and an anonymous finger pointed at the anchor desk … they distributed the news. And they did it flawlessly. No choking back the tears. No awkward gaps in the middle of their sentences. No one having to waive off the camera to someone else. They were given the ultimate challenge for a member of the media – they were asked to ignore what was in their own hearts and do what their job required. And they did it like we all would want to do it, but hope we would never have to. I watched the first half hour of their newscast, and while I watched I couldn’t help but think of our own Rita Price and Tim Keffaber, who were in the same situation last October. It was their voices who shared with us that a plane had crashed and killed four of their friends, and ours. And they did it very well. I was put into the position of reading my own parents’ obituaries on the radio, and was honored to do so. We in the media are a unique breed. We live our lives out in front of you – the good and the bad. When what happened Tuesday happens, and one of us is taken away, it leaves a hole in all of us. Our hearts are broken for Denise Bohn-Stewart’s families – her personal family and her media family.
