One of the interns in the newsroom got his dream realised shortly two months into his internship. A Big story broke and with most journalists already on stories – he was told to go.
I could see the smile, the veins in his neck and under his eye popping as the adrenalin started pumping. He left.
A few hours later he came back. Excited, but very quiet. He was green, and I don’t just mean in experience.
He wrote his story for radio. And the well experienced TV reporter wrote his. When the TV reporter started eating a sarmie, he disappeared, running to the toilet in a speed matching that of Flash Gordon.
He came back to merciless taunts from his fellow journalists. Shame, it was the first time he’d seen a murder –a badly beaten and burnt body.
He couldn’t eat for two days, as the image of the body haunted him. We all told him what we were told when we saw our first mutilated bodies: “Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it.”
[courtesy: SABC news]
And he did, or if he’s pretending now, he will. We all did. To a point where we are so desensitised it’s actually scary.
The cameraman who filmed it and the reporter eat shortly afterwards as they were busy calling into words the dreadful deed.
I drive by accidents without flinching. And a few years ago, in Cape Town, a man’s car burst into flames while he was in it. The way he was still clutching the steering wheel, looking straight ahead, burnt beyond recognition was the attraction for me.
I started thinking of why the accident happened and if there may be culpability from the manufacturer or the garage perhaps where he probably filled up shortly before the accident, while me fellow passengers were throwing up through the nearest window.
I think of the police, ambulance staff, the army and all those people who have to see these things. And I wonder, as I pray for those who lost their lives in some of the most gruesome ways, how the handle images at night, shortly before they go to sleep.
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