Brooke Baldwin is reporting from down in Parkland, Florida. CNN played video of a mother of one of the children killed in Wednesday’s school shooting. After the video clip played, the woman’s raw rage and pain expressed toward Trump and the other impotent lawmakers who have sat on their hands while child after child dies affected Baldwin as much as it affects all of us.
Mother: How? How do we allow a gunman to come into our children's school? How do they get through security? What security is there? There's no metal detectors. The gunman, a crazy person, just walks right into the school, knocks on the window of my child's door and starts shooting, shooting her and killing her! President trump, you say what can you do? You can stop the guns from getting into these children's hands! Put metal detectors at every entrance to the schools. What can you do? You can do a lot! This is not fair to our families and our children go to school and have to get killed! I just spent the last two hours putting the burial arrangements for my daughters funeral, who is 14! President trump, please do something! Do something. Action! We need it now! These kids need safety now!
Baldwin was visibly shaken and could not transition into an interview with Congressman Gary Deutsch. As time goes on and these tragedies happen with more and more frequency, the pain and exhaustion and horror experienced each and every time do not go away. It’s been six years since 20 elementary school children and six adults were killed in Newtown, Connecticut. At the time, the journalistic “rule of the day,” was to act with stoicism—reporting just the facts.
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In watching the coverage of the horrifying Newtown school shooting, I was struck by how little emotion I heard in those reports. Anchors and reporters put on stoic faces to deliver the news that 20 children had been killed, even though inside they must have been torn apart, especially because many of them live in New York or Connecticut and were grappling with a tragedy in their own backyard.
No matter how awful the news, journalists are expected to keep a straight face. I cried when President Obama got a tear in his eye while addressing the country. He channeled the emotion of the country. That’s not how I felt watching the TV news teams.
The process of grieving, of experiencing the pain in the world around you, is something that can be disabling at times, sometimes cathartic, but frequently an experience filled with all kinds of emotions. The public sphere is at the end of its rope, and the Republican Party’s shilling for the masters of weapons and war must come to an end. All of our children’s lives are at stake.
Her name was Alyssa Alhadeff and she was 14 years old. Rest in peace.
You can watch the clip below but be warned, it is brutal.