When I was a breaking news/street beat reporter in Los Angeles, my producers would want me to knock on mass casualty survivors' doors. I would refuse, which is part of how I earned an exceptionally irritating "maverick" moniker, but there are other ways to write these stories.
I've covered some pretty bad, ugly situations on the ground over the years; I've found there's no sense in retraumatizing people just to get some five-second sound bite during ratings periods. That's the laziest journalism of all, when you forget who you work for -- the people.
Anyway, I'm glad Selene San Felice wrote this piece. It's important.
