It was a rough day.

There is a widespread belief, propogated by clever little catch phrases like, “If it bleeds, it leads,” that whenever tragedy strikes, people in a newsroom are practically ready to throw a party.

Such catch phrases, which some are convinced perfectly sums up everything that journalism is, usually come from people who have never worked in the field themselves, and therefore don’t know what they’re talking about.

It’s true that when a big story breaks, there is something of a rush that occurs. I would not presume to deny that. But you have to put that into perspective.

It’s the same kind of rush that a stock broker feels when a stock he has purchased goes through the roof. He may not immediately think that the reason the stock went up is because some monster company bought up a bunch of little companies and cut expenses by laying lots of people off. He’s looking at the center of the picture, not the picture as a whole.

It’s also similar to what a firefighter feels when he steps into a burning building. Once he knows that the family is out of the home, his immediate concern isn’t some pleasant reverie of the family’s happy moments within that structure; he’s focused, hyper-focused on attacking that fire, battling to win, and saving as much of what’s left as he can.

But there has to come a time, if you’re a human being, where you pause and realize that there is a human impact. Such a moment in journalism came on live television on November 22, 1963, as Walter Cronkite read a flash bulletin announcing that it had been confirmed that President Kennedy had died in Dallas. After reading that bulletin, he removed his glasses, and paused, appearing to struggle with the gravity of the words he had just spoken.

Most such moments do not occur on the air, nor are they as easy to spot. Sometimes, it stays inside, and it burns like a hot poker until you have to leave the room and be alone for a little while.

The news day began in our morning meeting, a daily ritual in which producers and reporters gather to discuss what we know is happening today, what we need to check on that may be happening, and what potential story ideas are waiting to be developed into something.

I don’t know of a newsroom that doesn’t have, somewhere, a bank of monitors tuned to other channels, both local and cable. I was one of the first to notice one of the cable news channels airing a graphic that said something about a school shooting. It appeared to be a small story at that moment. Someone wounded, being treated. A couple of states away. A big story, but not necessarily the story of the day.

That, I hardly need point out, changed as the morning went on.

First, it was one shooting. Then it was two. One minute, one person was shot. Then there were two victims. Then, inexplicably, it became 22 people injured. Then one of our producers saw something on the wire that said 21 were killed.

“Well that can’t be right,” someone else said.

I spent a good deal of time in the newsroom rather than in my office, because I wanted to get as much information as I could for promos later in the afternoon. I called a friend of mine at my old station in Richmond, who said she was sure that it was 21 injured and only one actually killed, for a total of 22 victims. That calmed things down for about thirty seconds, at which time a press conference with the college’s police chief began and he confirmed that there were at least 22 dead. And about 28 more wounded.

Suddenly Virginia Tech had become the scene of the worst shooting — not one of the worst but the worst — shooting in American history.

By the time I recorded promos for my station’s coverage that evening, the death toll had increased to 32. Last time I heard anything, one more had died, bringing the total to 33. That’s 33 too many.

Recently, a reporter I work with covered a funeral of a local person who was somehow notable. Said reporter was quite emotional upon returning to the station. I’ve seen it happen to male and female reporters. Sometimes, it just hits you, no matter how hard you work to make sure it doesn’t.

Today, I saw quite a few people writing scripts, pulling in new facts from various sources, talking to people on the scene and from sister stations closer to Virginia Tech, and some of them had that shell-shocked expression on their faces. They probably didn’t realize it, but I could see it hitting them. And I was reminded of my week in hell in that edit bay after 9/11, when there were times that I felt like the walls were closing in on me during the news overload.

Sometimes, getting the story on the air, (so that some people can constantly complain about what we did or didn’t do), takes a toll. Many of us do not like to admit it, because we’re somehow supposed to be detatched from it.

But I don’t know how you can hear about a story of someone gunning down nearly 50 people, more than 30 fatally, even if it happened “somewhere else,” even if you didn’t know any of them, and not be, on some level, affected by it. Even if only deep down.

As hard as it was to see what was happening, I can’t imagine what it must be like for family and friends. Or witnesses.

I wouldn’t know where to begin.