Bad News is Always Good News

So, I work for a radio station in Detroit, Michigan. And I've learned that bad news is always good news for us. Sometimes, when there's an accident, my producer asks if anyone was injured, or even better, died. And it's no news when something bad didn't happen to someone....

I've come to the point where I'm numb about things we write about. Rarely does something bad that's happened affect me... Sometimes, we even laugh about things, to ease the situation at hand.....

Today, there was an accident in Canton, where an 18-year-old died after she rear-ended another driver. The 15-year-old girl in the car with the other teen survived with "non life-threatening injuries," as we call it.

I wrote the story as if nothing happened. Just the usual routine, "An 18-year-old Plymouth resident is dead after rear-ending...."... Nothing. It means nothing.... I don't turn this 18-year-old into a person, it's just another character in this world who's gone. My world goes on...

But then on my drive home, I remembered the story.. and imagined myself as the 15-year-old in the car. How everything must have happened so fast...just a boom, your body is in shock...you don't feel what just happened. But then you look over to your friend, or your sister, or whoever that 18-year-old girl was, and realize...what just happened. Did he try to shake her awake? Did he even realize she was dead in the seat next to him? Or did he think that maybe she was just knocked out. Then I imagine him at the hospital, being treated for his injuries, when he gets the news... that the girl who was sitting next to him in that car is gone...forever...

That makes me sad. And that's why I don't imagine people as people when I write about them. It's just another story in this world... That way, I don't go home and feel bad for the daughter, the sister, the mother, the aunt, the wife, the girlfriend... that was lost today. And the pain that family is going through. I stay numb.