Lambs to the Slaughter

Sarah is intelligent, observant and well-spoken as she details the horrific events at Sandy Hook Elementary School Friday morning to a major network broadcaster.

Sarah is 8.

Just moments earlier, her mother, connected via a second phone line in their Newtown, Conn., home, talked about the gruesome shooting rampage that left Sarah’s principal and 25 others – 6 and 7 year olds and teachers – dead inside the school. Young Sarah listened quietly, waiting her turn to speak.

Jarred by the surreal exchange – an 8-year-old being questioned by a TV talking head about the nation’s second-worst school shooting – I changed the channel.

On MSNBC, another young girl is ticking through the moments after Adam Lanza – armed with two handguns, a military-style assault rifle and enough ammunition to inflict unthinkable pain – broke into the elementary school and opened fire. The child stands before a gaggle of reporters, each of whom has shoved a microphone in her face. A male voice off-camera is heard rapidly lobbing questions in the young girl’s direction: “How many shots did you here?” “What did you see as you left?”

The clip would replay later that evening just moments before NBC commentator Brian Williams announced the station would honor victim’s families’ requests for privacy. “We are going to treat them the way we would want to be treated in this situation,” he told the camera.

By then, media first on the scene had pounced on witnesses to the slaughter – the very children whose lives had been spared.

It is hard to imagine why a parent would allow their child to be thrust into the limelight, especially immediately after such a tragic event. And, in that moment, I was sad to be a journalist.

My personal sense was that the “get-it-first” mentality that drives the 24/7 news cycle has no boundaries, no limits. And our children, forced to grow up way too soon anyway, in this situation were no longer protected by the “handle-with-care” common sense approach you’d hope even aggressive reporters would show.

This is not the first senseless attack on children in America. Five children were killed Oct. 2, 2006, at the West Nickel Mines School after a gunman broke into the Pennsylvania one-room Amish schoolhouse. Sadly, youngsters are not immune to tragic, senseless acts of broken people.

In the coming days, we’re sure to hear more about strengthening gun laws, beefing up protection at elementary schools and mental illness. Hopefully, a review of coverage will open the dialogue in newsrooms across the country about how tragedies involving children will be reported.

The reality is, in the case of Friday’s events at Sandy Hook, we’ll likely never know what could have prevented the shooter from violently stealing the lives of so many innocents.

As families bury their loved ones this, Christmas week, we extend our heartfelt prayers. We wish for them peace and healing. And we pray, dear God, that our nation be spared another tragedy like this one.