WDBJ Staffers Worked Through the Tears

While the staff at WDBJ was shocked at the killing of their two co-workers while doing a live shot, the station still had newscasts to put on the air.

While the newscasts were more memorial than news, the station staffers still had a job to do. When you station becomes the news, it puts everyone that works their in a position for which they are not familiar. 

Their grief was evident during the newscasts that followed, but so was their restraint.

"This is a hard day for all of us here at WDBJ7. We are mourning Alison and Adam, but it is our job to find the facts," anchorwoman Melissa Ganoa said during the 5 p.m. EDT newscast, less than 12 hours after the shooting. 

The station quickly made the decision that they were not going to run the video of the shootings.

"We are choosing not to run the video of that (the shooting) right now because, frankly, we don't need to see it again. And our staff doesn't need to see it again," Jeffrey Marks, WDBJ's president and general manager, said on air soon afterward. "But we will do full reporting on it later. Our teams are working on it right now, through the tears."

WDBJ news director Kelly Zuber was asked in an interview whether the station planned to air the selfie video. In it, a hand holding a gun is seen behind Ward for several seconds and then squeezes off shots at Parker.

"At this point we don't," she said Wednesday evening. "We'll review that as we go. It's pretty raw right now in our newsroom. And we will continue to process the journalism, and if that piece of video is important to what we do, we'll include it. But for right now, no. No."

Last night's newscasts by WDBJ was done on adrenalin and emotion, the story was about them and their two colleagues. Soon it will be back to covering regular news and then it will be hard not to think back to the friends that were lost.

Station's around the country and reaching out. A station in Waterloo, Iowa sent a food basket, many station's sent flowers or cards.

As big as the TV business seems, it's really not. Everyone knows that it could have been a story that happened at their station and it could have been their co-workers that were killed.

They would be hard pressed to do a better job than the folks at WDBJ at still putting on the news. 

H/T The AP