Covering West (Part Three)

Inside the West Auction Barn, where press conferences were held in the aftermath of the explosion.

I woke up the next day to the insistent ringing of my cell phone. It was 9 a.m. — I had slept through the alarm I set for 7. It was my boss. "Where are you and what are you doing?" she asked. I knew it was a summons. Instead of bothering to explain, I just told her I'd be in the office in 30 minutes, after a shower and enough coffee to turn me back into a human. 

I had fallen asleep in my clothes from the night before. I stripped them off and carefully selected a nice top and blazer, which I wore with jeans over fake Ugg boots.* I was groggy but I knew what was coming. Rob refused to come in to work, so I would need to go to West, leaving my second-in-command, the city desk editor, to manage the newsroom. Travis, my photographer of the night before, came with me. 

Before we left, we stopped by my apartment. We ate — we knew we would be gone all day with little likelihood of a break. We were upset by the news we heard — people were dead, injured, homeless. Wanting to help but not knowing what else to do, we threw the entire contents of my pantry into a few plastic bags, to drop off at a donation site. 

The press were massed at the West Auction Barn, which had been set up as a staging area. All press conferences would be held there. We went there first. 


I was amazed at the sheer NUMBER of people there. I had never seen an operation like this before. News vans crowded the parking lot of the auction barn. People milled around or sat on the hard-packed dirt floor. I tried not to think about the fact that it was a cattle barn when I absentmindedly realized I was touching the dirt with my injured hand.** 


The first big story of my day, I guess, came when a resident who witnessed the explosion wandered in. He was a local man in his early 40s who was on his way from picking up his son when he noticed smoke coming from the direction of the plant. 

Once he had one microphone in his face, he had eighty. People mobbed him, desperate for details. I can't imagine how overwhelming it was for him, having to tell that story to so many people, all strangers. It was dehumanizing to witness. For the first time in my career, I felt like a shark. 

Reporters and photographers swarm a man who came to the auction barn to share his experience of the explosion. You can make out the bright copper hair and brown leather jacket of my photographer Travis. He was repeating his story for the others who noticed him later. I had already gotten his story and quotes earlier and stepped back to let someone else have my place in front. I can't imagine how overwhelming that must be.

This kind of ganging-up on sources is  driven by competition. There wasn't a need for us to descend en masse but news outlets don't often share details with each other. "Scooping" is still a thing in journalism. I tend to think this mentality hurts the industry as a whole, but I won't get into that here. At the very least, it doesn't help our collective image with non-media. 

I knew the West community a little bit. I lived nearby. It was very tight-knit, to the point of being suspicious of outsiders. I couldn't imagine what they made about the media firestorm they were currently surrounded by, pushing to get interviews, asking questions they probably didn't want to answer, reporters bothering a town bereaved,  but it probably wasn't good. 

And on April 18, 2013, it made me feel like the veriest bitch for being one of them. 

*(Before you call my fashion choice bizarre, many reporters in West were dressed like that: nicely on top, but with more comfortable gear underneath. I saw one in a suit top and sweatpants. The point is to look professional on camera, but also wear something that will stand up to a day, say, kneeling in a dirt-floored auction barn. I'm not actually a television reporter, but the Lariat had recently started a broadcast division, and I wasn't sure if they would need footage from me. In any case, I didn't stand out. Oh, and it was cold.) 

** The injury was unrelated.