Covering death

Covering crime is not exactly an uplifting job. It doesn’t leave me feeling cheery or like the world is perfect.

Sometimes it’s not pretty. I’ve seen and heard things that I wish I hadn’t—like images of injured people, details of a car crash or the names of files containing child pornography on someone’s computer.

It can be difficult to cover, but it’s even harder for the people closest to the situation.

In the past few weeks, I’ve written about the unexpected deaths of two young adults. One involved the murder of a 28-year-old woman who was beaten to death. The other was a 19-year-old man who died in a crash on the interstate after he drove the wrong way and collided with a semi-truck.

After recently spending more than an hour talking to the family of the teenager, I was told I have the most depressing beat. At that moment, I couldn’t really disagree. I had spent most of my recent days speaking to people who were grieving their lost loved ones, interviewing coroners about cause of death and researching domestic violence.

But after spending about six hours between interviewing family members and writing a story remembering this local 19-year-old, I felt strange reassurance that I’m in the right career field. I wasn’t annoyed that it was 10 p.m. and I had started work that day at 8 a.m. I smiled with confidence that I had portrayed the teen just as his family had seen him.

When a loved one dies unexpectedly and in the public eye, they deserve a good story. A person shouldn’t be remembered just by, “the kid who died on the interstate” or “the woman who was beaten to death.” These people deserve to be remembered for more—like loving the color purple and playing with Hot Wheels as a kid.

The interviews are slightly uncomfortable, the conversations aren’t short and the stories aren’t quick to write, and that’s OK with me. I take my time, handle it with extra care and hope the family doesn’t regret their decision. When it comes to something like this, there’s a heightened responsibility to get everything right. It’s not like that person who I’m writing about can call me and tell me I was wrong.

I wrote these articles and kind of held my breath, wondering if I’d hear from family members again. Luckily, I was later told that the mom of the 19-year-old said she was happy she talked to me and one of our photographers. The family of the 28-year-old woman said it was helpful to talk about her. I let out a sigh of relief. Covering death might be depressing, but there’s not much more satisfying then knowing I honored the deceased in a way that pleased their surviving family and friends.