On Friday, FTVLive got word that WVUE (New Orleans) Anchor Nancy Parker was killed in a small plane crash. We tweeted the news, but did not give her name:

FTVLive is getting word that a News Anchor was killed in a small plane crash that happened today. We have confirmed the crash, two people dead. No names yet and we will hold off until confirmation. So sad.
— FTVLive (@FTVLive) August 16, 2019

At the same time FTVLive was posting this tweet, Parker’s co-workers at the station were learning the same news. We held off on the name, because we knew that her family and friends had not yet gotten word of the tragic accident.

Back at WVUE, Anchor Liz Reyes knew immediately that something awful had happened.

Reyes was prepping for the station’s 4 p.m. broadcast on Friday when she stepped out of the newsroom for a few moments. When she returned, something had changed.

People were grabbing equipment and dashing out the newsroom door. Others, she said, wore stunned looks on their faces, “like they had just gotten the worst news ever.”

The WVUE staff had just learned that a two-seat stunt plane in which anchorwoman Nancy Parker was riding had crashed in a New Orleans East field shortly after takeoff from Lakefront Airport. The veteran journalist and mother of three was killed along with pilot Franklin Augustus.

The Times Picayune writes that details were still few in those early, chaotic moments, Reyes said, but with less than an hour before the 4 p.m. newscast, the WVUE staff did the only thing they could: their jobs.

It would mark the start of an agonizing afternoon and evening. In the coming hours, the team would report through shock and grief, swallowing their emotions and relying on their instincts as journalists to report a heartbreaking story of which they had become a part.

As they scrambled to tell that story, multiple members of the WVUE staff would later say, they were sustained by a common thought: It’s what Parker would have done. It’s also what she would have wanted them to do.

“You’ve got to do this for Nancy, as a tribute to her,” Reyes said in describing the mindset of the newsroom in those initial hours: “let the world know the giant the community lost today.”

WVUE Photographer Chris Russell was working with Parker on the story and he was on the ground when the plane crashed.

Russell first alerted the newsroom that something had gone wrong. According to eyewitnesses, the plane appeared to be having engine trouble soon after takeoff.

The station reported the story, but did not tell viewers it was Parker that was involved in the crash. They were waiting until her family was notified

“Out of respect for the family, which is protocol, they couldn’t tell our viewers," said WVUE Anchor Snell. "Poor Rob Masson was out there (on the scene), fully aware that his dear friend and colleague was on that plane, and he couldn’t report it. But I tell this to people all the time: That’s what we do.”.

Reporting on the death of a co-workers is one of the hardest things that Journalists have to do.

The staff at WVUE did a good job in a very tough situation.

Services for Parker will be this Friday at Xavier's Convocation Center in New Orleans.