No Right Answer

Friday, October 24, 2008 at 9:52pm

In one of the graduate classes I just finished, our first posting on Blackboard was to discuss what the policy concerning the death of a student was in our school system. Well, I have been fortunate in that it has been a very long time since I have been working at a school that lost a student during the school year. I don't think we have a policy regarding how this issue to be dealt with. I couldn't find one. Working in Cullman County has its advantages here. We aren't in the Huntsville stations' DMA, and we're a good distance from Birmingham (which has plenty of other news to cover), so no one wants to bother sending a truck down for a small story. I guess that allows us some measure of privacy that other systems do not have. Anyway, that assignment caused me to pay greater attention to the news coverage concerning Falkville's loss this week. I really didn't like the coverage that I saw anywhere. Do you know why? There is no right way to cover something like this. It never should have to have been covered because it's just not something that is meant to happen!!!! The stations that just did a brief reader. . . well, if you look at it from the point of view of the people who knew and loved this girl, that wasn't enough. It made her whole life worth less than 30 seconds! The station that packaged her life. . . well, that just wasn't right either. It. . . I don't know. . . I didn't like that there appeared to be a trace of a smile on your face when the anchors tossed to you. A teenager's dead, and you just covered it like you would any other live shot that intros a package. You did, however, allow that her life merited a package, but still. . . it's not enough. Then, if you totally ignored the news, you've made it appear that she didn't matter at all. What none of the viewers realize is that the only reason you covered the story at all is because she killed herself on campus.

At any rate, I am devastated. My heart aches immensely for the family and friends left behind. I did not know Emily. I'm not even sure if I was acquainted with her family, although there is a good chance that I went to school with some of her family. I ache for the faculty and staff at the high school. I ache for the teacher who allowed Emily to leave class to go to the restroom and now mistakenly blames him or herself. I'm not quite sure why I am so devastated. Perhaps it's because I have experienced two suicides from "those left behind" point of view. Perhaps it is because I know what it's like to have been insecure and hurting inside so badly that you feel you can't go on and pray to die. Perhaps it's because I have this unusual ability to sense the pain of others. Perhaps it's because some of Emily's friends believe she was not a Christian. Whatever the reason, the aching is no less.

I have no more to say because there are no words to lessen the tragedy nor replace the brief beauty of a girl I never met: a girl named Emily.