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This is how journalists process trauma
Letter from the Editor Dear Reader, When the rest of the world is in shock or grieving, we are working.
I was on deadline in the newsroom when the space shuttle Challenger exploded; when the federal building in Oklahoma City was bombed; when planes flew into the World Trade Center.
In those occasions, we journalists set aside personal feelings and do our jobs – working days on end getting information and writing stories that help our readers make sense of the senseless. It doesn’t make those events less traumatic, but that’s when our jobs are most important.
Our facility at doing that has been put to the test this week. On Saturday, our colleague and good friend Eric English died suddenly of natural causes. Roughly 24 hours earlier, he’d been in virtual chats with other managers, discussing weekend coverage plans.
Eric oversaw our news teams in Bay City and Saginaw, but he was connected to our journalists across the state. We are a very close-knit team.
I worked with Eric for almost 27 of his 33 years in our company. Most of that was at The Bay City Times, where I worked in editor roles and he ran our bureau in Tawas City, although he also spent time as an editor in Saginaw and Ann Arbor in the past 10 years as we were growing the MLive newsrooms.
Eric covered the good, the bad and the mundane of an entire community. It could be a huge government grant that benefited the town, or it could be the death of ice fisherman on Tawas Bay. Most often, the headlines reflected the day-to-day grist of news breaking, decision-makers deciding, lives being lived.
He did it all with a world-weary wit, a “what now?” demeanor, and a stubborn commitment to getting it right, making it thorough, and following stories through to their conclusion. In the newsroom, he was the archetypical journalist – curious, smart and given to spontaneous rants about the folly of … well, everything.
Professionally, journalists need to be detached so we can be objective, even in the face of things that seem unfair, wrong or tragic. Cynicism and dark humor are protective layers over the human parts of us that would feel so much pain, so often, in this job.
Sunday, we were in deep pain, but also we were back to work – gathering information about Eric’s life and death for a story for MLive. On Monday, amid the tears and the anecdotes we shared in remembrance of Eric, many of us said some version of: “This is what Eric would’ve done, and would want.”
Get the story, get it right, get onto the next. This is how journalists process trauma – we turn it into something constructive for others, even as we hurt.
Eric provided an example of that in 2010, when his son, David, died after a valiant battle with cancer. The Bay City Times wrote a story, because David’s fight inspired organizations around Bay City to support the Englishes and raise money to fight cancer.
Eric agreed to be interviewed for the story, along with his wife, Kathy, and daughter, Holly. Even in his grief, he knew that journalism – single stories that resonate with a whole community – has the power to unite and heal in times of pain.
In that story, Holly said of her brother: “He’s still my best friend. He’s just farther away.”
This week, Eric English is suddenly farther away. But he’s still our lovably grumpy coworker, and his spirit is helping us do the work he embodied for three decades.
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Editor's note: I value your feedback to my columns, story tips and your suggestions on how to improve our coverage. Let me know how MLive helps you, and how we can do better. Please feel free to reach out by emailing me at editor@mlive.com.
John Hiner Executive Editor Vice President of Content Mlive Media Group
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