Notes from the Editor’s Desk: When the worst brings out the best

Today will be a rather short column. I had a lengthy diatribe all drafted out, talking about some of the changes that will be upcoming in the Dalton Daily Citizen newspaper and on our website — and that column will still run, probably next Wednesday (once again disrupting my self-set bi-weekly schedule).But once in a while, a news item (or more) crosses your desk, and it — combined with some of the journalistic memories it invokes — requires a change in plans.

And yesterday was just such an occurrence. Literally in the middle of drafting my column, delving into changes readers will see on page A2 in the coming months, a news release from City of Dalton Communications Director Bruce Frazier dropped into my email in-box.Reading Fraizer’s brief announcement of the actions of two of our local firefighters who are part of a Georgia Search and Rescue (GSAR) task force responding to a flooding emergency in rural Kentucky immediately flooded my mind with similar stories I have covered in the nearly quarter century I’ve been in the journalism field.



One of the hardest parts of being a working journalist is the tragedies that are part and parcel of our job. In 25 years, I have clung to what now seems like a very flimsy strap as I leaned out the open doorway of a helicopter to take photos as it dumped thousands of gallons of water on the 2002 Biscuit fire that burned nearly 500,000 acres in the Rogue River–Siskiyou National Forest. I have come home with the blood of innocents on my shoes after Kip Kinkel open fired in a Springfield, Oregon, school, and years later, once again, when a 12-year-old child began shooting on the basketball court of a middle school outside Reno.

I have covered fatal accidents and shootings, I have reported on cancer survivors, and victims of domestic violence. I have kept my community advised in the midst of every sort of natural disaster. And in the midst of every single one of those tragedies — I saw the best in humanity.

I saw neighbors sacrificing to care for neighbors. I saw friends and family risking everything to help loved ones. I saw politicians — yes, politicians — break down and weep at the devastation they witnessed, and toss aside campaign priorities to get their hands dirty in the rescue attempts — even when there were no cameras present.

I saw communities come together despite “insurmountable” differences, and I saw strangers become lifelong friends. I’ve witnessed, in my career, scenes of destruction, devastation, loss and despair, and as any journalist will tell you — those images stick with you, hidden in out-of-the-way places in your mind, always ready to pop up at the most inopportune time.But I’ve also seen the flipside — and to me, that makes me blessed.

Jessica Waters is the managing editor of the Dalton Daily Citizen.The post Notes from the Editor’s Desk: When the worst brings out the best appeared first on Dalton Daily Citizen..