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Gretchen Hoak: Joe Hight thank you so much for agreeing to be on the podcast today. I'm really excited to get into our conversation. You've had such a long and distinguished career with journalism. ⁓ And ⁓ my first question has to be what made want to be a journalist and what kept you in for long? ⁓
Joe Hight: Well, I've always somehow always been a part of journalism. think it was something that was meant to be in my life and something that is incredible part of me throughout life. started as a as a circulation carrier to guest today leader many, many years ago. Matter of fact, ⁓ because of I was able to be honored by the Oklahoma Press Association with my 50 year plaque. which is kind of rare this business, but I've actually been in the business for 50 years. But what kept me in it was I've always felt like that journalism was a noble mission. And one of the last noble missions that carry.
Gretchen Hoak: Welcome to Informed Reporting podcast where we connect research and the real world to have real conversations about life as a journalist and how to make it better. I'm your host, Dr. Gretchen Hoek, a former local TV journalist turned university professor and researcher. Today, I'm so honored to bring you this conversation with Joe Height. Joe is a 50-year veteran of the newspaper business and an inductee in the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame.
Joe Hight: in trying to be journalists. It means that we have a mission that's protected by the First Amendment and how important that is this society as well as this world that journalists have a part in it.
Gretchen Hoak: I think there's something a little bit poetic about having started as a paperboy and ⁓ your way into being a journalist. ⁓ I that that's great and definitely shows your passion for it at a very, very early age. ⁓
Joe Hight: Yes.
Gretchen Hoak: He spent 27 years at the Oklahoman newspaper where he helped lead their award-winning coverage of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. Joe has spent his career as an innovator in news coverage championing compassionate community-centered reporting and as a result became a leading voice in the conversation about journalists, trauma, and the effects of covering tragedy. In this episode, we talk about Joe's coverage of the Oklahoma City bombing and how it shaped his views on a holistic approach to tragedy.
Joe Hight: Yes, you know, and it was something I always felt like it was part of my community. And the who were in those early days always felt that way to me. It doesn't mean that I went through the same type of turmoil that most journalists do in their first five years. ⁓ I quit job, found a job, I was fired without having a job, and I had a newspaper closed down on me after I'd just started.
Gretchen Hoak: We also talk about his forthcoming book, which traces the through lines of tragedy and resilience through interviews with victims and veteran journalists. One final note, this conversation includes many references to people and news events over the past several decades. There are links in the show notes if you'd like to learn more about those we mentioned.
Joe Hight: I went through all that turmoil and felt like there was an important part, so important, that I needed to continue as a journalist in various
Gretchen Hoak: You've been listening the Informed Reporting Podcast with me, Dr. Gretchen Hoak. If you liked you heard today, please like and follow us on Spotify or Apple podcasts and feel free to leave us a positive review. To keep the conversation going and for more information and content between shows, Well, that's certainly to be commended because I think there's a lot of journalists after having experienced even one of those things may have pivoted to a new career. So it definitely shows your, just your your love for the career and your love for the work and to be able to or to be willing to continue to stick it out, even though those early years were sort of, ⁓ you marred by a little turmoil. Right. ⁓ Please follow us on Instagram @ informedreportingpodcast. Our music is Casual Fridays by 1000 Handz, through a Creative Commons license from Free Music Archive. This podcast is produced independently of my teaching and research roles in the School of Media and Journalism at Kent State University. The information shared here reflects my views and those of my guests and is not reflective of the views or official policies of my institution.
Joe Hight: Well, it doesn't mean that I didn't think about pivoting. It means that I think that I came to conclusions that this is where I was meant to be. mean, an editor, we called him old Dan McClung, he was at the Lawton Constitution. And he said to me something that's remained with me, that journalism is in your blood. I can tell it's in your blood and that it always will be there.
Gretchen Hoak: If you have any questions or ideas for guests or topics, please email us at informedreportingpodcast@gmail.com.
Joe Hight: And I think you need to hold that dear. And so I've always held on to that belief from old dad that, hey, this is something that I was meant to do. And no matter where life took me, I was going to continue to pursue that path in various ways from being in newsrooms to teaching journalism as part of it.
Gretchen Hoak: Well, a significant part of your including the academic part, has also been with journalism and trauma. And you've been a significant contributor to a lot of the efforts to make journalists aware of what the work can do to them sometimes, depending on what they've covered. Where did ⁓ that come from?
Joe Hight: Well, it actually happened very early in my career. I actually did a series of interviews with victims and I started to see the dramatic effect ⁓ we did on them. ⁓ I think I started caring and thinking about that as ⁓ that was important that we didn't really understand. ⁓ And I think that's what caused me to begin thinking further about the effect of that. And then all of a sudden in my own community, tragedy
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started to affect it and I started to be affected myself. And I started to see it holistically instead of just through a tunnel. And so I think that's why I started thinking about it more as something that others journalists needed to think about more in their careers as well. because it will eventually would affect them.
Gretchen Hoak: I think I would agree. remember even being a young reporter and knowing that I had asked a question that had upset someone. You know, you kind of immediately know when you ask something that for whatever reason just hit them harder than you intended. And I remember not knowing that that question would do that, but then also not knowing what I was supposed to do in response to their, negative reaction, And so I can, sort of understand that feeling of, oh wait, I'm having an impact and I didn't know I could. And then having that same feeling in yourself as well.
Joe Hight: Yeah, I think some of us are more natural at being able to be empathetic with others. But it's a trait you have to gain skill at. ⁓ you have to be able to, over understand the questions you ask do have an effect on that individual. ⁓ the you an individual may have more of an impact on them negatively. And that old adage, do no further harm, I felt like became important in journalism just as much as it became important in medicine. Because we could do long-term harm in how we reacted in the aftermath of the tragedy. And I'll never forget the first interview, one of the first interviews I conducted with a victim, it was a young woman who had been raped. And I'll never forget. how I sat there and she was telling me her story. And I was just going, ⁓ my gosh, I'm learning the story and I feel like that this is something that's so tragic and so intrusive and how can I make this better for her? And in the end, I didn't have an answer. And there's a lot of times I don't have answers. it's come many, many times in my career ⁓ someone has asked me a question ⁓ made me think about it more, but I didn't have the answer ⁓ the time. I of, too, the Oklahoma State University plane crash where 10 members, basketball members, and... and staff and a beloved broadcaster named Bill Teegans ⁓ killed in the crash in Colorado and and Bill was beloved ⁓ journalists at the Oklahoman and I was ⁓ the sports editor and the sports writers and I never forget I really he was a grizzled old sports reporter. He was kind of these old traditional type of sports reporters who didn't let things affect him. You never saw him be emotional, but at that moment, he looked up to me and he said, why would God allow this to happen? And I just looked back to him and said, I don't know. I don't have the answer. And I think that's why at certain points in our careers, we have to admit we don't have answers. And we need to look further into what are the answers to these questions. And I think especially when we talk about trauma, we have to start searching for answers about why we cover these types of stories the way we do and how we treat people and communities and ourselves in the aftermath of them.
Gretchen Hoak: Yeah, I agree. think that there's, any sort of traumatic incident is to sort of inherently have news value. So ⁓ the journalist is going to be But there is a lot of considerations that have to come with that. Like you said, not only ⁓ how should I cover this and the best way to cover it and how can I minimize harm to the people that I'm covering, but also how do I minimize the harm to myself? that self-care piece, like mentioned, I think is an incredibly big part of understanding how to cover those types of events.
Joe Hight: Yeah, but I also think that if we think about this holistically, and this is why I've always emphasized the importance of journalists thinking about the victims first, how they cover the victims, how do they cover a community, especially those of us who are community journalists and how important that is to think about your community, and then finally how you take care of yourselves, because all of those kind of go together. I mean, let's face it, if you don't have empathy the victims, if you don't ⁓ understand how the community reacts, it will affect you negatively. And you will have considerable amount of guilt build up over time. And even if you do it right, and I've seen journalists who have done it right. it's affected them negatively because they were sensitive to the situation. As I've always said, you want your best, most sensitive journalists covering these types of tragedies, understanding that when you send them to cover these types of tragedies, it affects them too, because it's in their own community.
Gretchen Hoak: Well, and you've certainly had a lot of experience with this. You have almost 30 years in Oklahoma City News, which obviously encompassed the Oklahoma City bombing, Can you talk a little about that day and what your role was ⁓ during that coverage?
Joe Hight: Well, ⁓ was the editor on duty the office at the time, so I actually saw it and heard it shake the building. ⁓ Oklahoman was in a 12-story tower, which is about seven miles from downtown Oklahoma City. ⁓ ⁓ I describe it, At the moment of that blast, when it occurred, it spread a shockwave north, which hit the building. And then the building actually shook. And this is the building built to withstand 300 mile per hour winds. So small tornadoes didn't do any damage to it. Some in hail storms, it all this. But in that instant, we felt the building shake. In a way, it's never shook before. And we looked downtown and saw that gray billowing smoke going in the air ⁓ we started to think something tragic has happened. We didn't think it was to the extent of someone would ⁓ a bombing against. people in a federal building of their anger toward the federal government and include children in that as well. So I started reporters out immediately to the I was then called the community reporter. community editor of the Oklahoma at the
time. So, almost immediately I was placed in charge of covering victims and it was put ⁓ largest group of reporters under me to cover the victims. And we decided early on that we may needed to make some decisions that would ultimately affect our coverage. example, we decided that ⁓ didn't have the capacity to do ⁓ long stories ⁓ ⁓ victim, but we could do profiles life. And we decided profiles of life is about how they lived instead of how they died. And I think for the first time that was done. And so we started focusing on how these people lived to balance the inevitable coverage of all the perpetrator and what had happened, and investigators and all that that came into it. And we saw ourselves as important to that. I called my group of reporters into a room afterwards. said, this is what you're gonna be remembered for. This is the biggest story you'll ever cover in your life and you need to do it right and you need to understand what we're doing. And so I think we started to see the impact of covering it differently. I had a community section, so I started using that. for that type of purpose to inform the community about the information, acts of kindness, what the community was doing, how people were acting toward us, as well as stories about the bigger picture, the victims. did a story about the ripple effect ⁓ each victim on hundreds and thousands of lives. ⁓ And understanding that this affected people in the newsroom too. lost relatives. lost friends. They lost people in the church In own church at the time and we had 17 people from that church who were killed in the bombing I can take a walk in my neighborhood today and still see a memorial to one those victims as well so ⁓ We wanted see it Holistically as something that we covered not only the crime that was happening itself But the people who were affected by that and how the community was affected by that as well. And I think that set a tone that was different than how those types of events were covered before. It doesn't mean that journalists didn't cover events beforehand correctly. doesn't mean that at all. What it did mean is we had to think about these types of events differently. Because we already had experience with the Edmund Post Office massacre. the dramatic effect it had on the community when occurred. Because, you from there the term going postal became part of vernacular ⁓ in our ⁓ Yet it here originally ⁓ in the where I still live. ⁓ Then the City bombing just magnified that. and how we as a community, and the community I'm talking about is the state of Oklahoma, but how the community expanded into a country by the effect of domestic terrorism that came to our front doorstep. And that's why I started realizing how these three areas were so, so important afterwards. So in the aftermath, we won... some national SPJ awards and other types of awards. But we also won an award called the Dart Center Award for coverage of trauma, which is really in its early stages back then. It
gave the staff a $10,000 award. when I announced this, was excited that we'd won the award, but $10,000 among so many staffers who'd covered the bombing wouldn't go that far. So I went to the editor, the managing editor there, who was Ed Kelly, and Ed Kelly did a masterful job of managing the aftermath of the coverage of Oklahoma City bombing. And I told him, said, know, could we do something different with this? We did something different in the coverage of this. Could we do something like provide training for journalists on how to cover this type, these types of events? And so we did. And that's what we used the 10,000 before for. And we invited people who had been victims of tragedy, families of members of tragedy. We invited experts. decided, invited Dr. Frank Ochberg. We invited all these different people to come to Oklahoma City to help us understand what had occurred and what we could do better in the future. And it wasn't the first time that we conducted by this type of training. We'd actually conducted in the newsroom, I'd been asked to organize training in the after Congressman Bill Brewster, I think lost both of his children, one his best friends in a plane crash when he was on the campaign trail. We invited him in, as well as others, to talk about what they thought about the coverage and what they thought we could do better and what we could do in the future. So it wasn't the first time we'd done it. We decided we'd do a much broader type of training. And at that point, that's where I met Frank Ochberg, and he started to talk to me about this dream of journalists coming together and understanding the subject of trauma and how important it was. And believe me, at that point, journalists didn't understand what trauma was. And so I became the lone journalist in the room that started talking to others about it. And believe me, I can tell you, I had rooms full of journalists and I would start talking about trauma and the effect and this stuff like that. And I would get these puzzling looks on face like, "What are you talking about?" ⁓ I'd have people raise their hands. "What's the trauma? What is that?" And "Why should I care about this?"
Gretchen Hoak: This wasn't a conversation back then. You know, when Oklahoma City bombing happened the mid 1990s, this was not a conversation in newsrooms. So I'm ⁓ very curious as to why your newsroom and you and your other editors and the folks you were working with were interested in pursuing this type of training because ultimately, ⁓ you guys were way ahead of your time for lack of a better way to put it.
Joe Hight: Well, think I'll tell you a personal story with me. And I think that I had a reporter, and I won't name who she is, but she was in the building across the street, in the federal building across the street. And she started calling me in a panic. And she kept telling me, black smoke is filling the room. I don't know what. to do and I said just get out of there, get out of there. And she kept going to different rooms and kept calling me. know, there's smoke everywhere and I don't know what to do. And I said just get out of there, that's all you need to do is get out of there and get back to the newsroom. Everything, we'll try to take care of it from there. And finally she got out, came back to the newsroom and she was so shaken that I just. I started realizing this is having a really dramatic effect on people. And I think, you know, Ed Kelly started to see that too. And had the foresight to call a counselor who I became friends with named Charlotte Lanker. Charlotte Lanker was a family therapist here in Oklahoma City. And she started to, came in the newsroom and I started realizing that as the days went on, we needed someone to put up with it, you know, what day it was even. ⁓ because every day we were coming in and we started seeing people being worn out by the coverage and started to see things that we hadn't witnessed before. so the realization at that point, the effect of that one individual remains with me today. She never wrote a story. And I don't know whether she wrote any stories about it. I don't remember any stories she wrote about it. I just remember the impact she had on me when I saw how it affected her in the immediate aftermath. And she was so close to the scene as well as other journalists were too. And then when I went down myself, ⁓ Red Cross worker and national guardsman actually took me in the area around the. and I saw the devastation and I saw the effect that it had I saw the humanity. That's really started to make me realize that we need to consider the humanity here. ⁓ I the story about there was a building that was set up for rescue workers ⁓ and I'll forget walking into it. They were giving a break, the firefighters, like that. And firefighter, open the door for me and had soot covering him you could tell he was tired because they put in ⁓ these long trying to search for survivors but in that moment he had the humanity to greet a fellow human being ⁓ and open the door for that and I realize ⁓ this is such a dramatic effect that individual as well as my community I personally had to start thinking of it differently as well. And I think we in the newsroom also started to feel that too. So that's why I think that ⁓ kind of started changing our tone ⁓ that it wasn't just about the perpetrator. I think that's what we sometimes fail in journalism. We so focused on the perpetrator and why the perpetrator did it and what the perpetrator is all about and what everything the perpetrator we forget that we have a community here. We also have victims and we have to provide a balance to that coverage. Elsewise, we overwhelm the community with this one story about an individual or a group of individuals.
Gretchen Hoak: And I think that it's definitely commendable because you think about when Oklahoma City happened and there had been obviously tragedies before, but this was, really the sort of like first domestic
terrorism type mass casually kind of thing. it even predates Columbine, obviously predates 9-11, So to be as, I guess, cognizant of the impact on the community as your newsroom was is, again, I think forward thinking, but, just really fascinating that in that moment with this kind of unprecedented event that your newsroom was so ⁓ willing to shift in the direction or like you said focus on the community journalistically, I think it's a fascinating event to look back on because of when it happened and ⁓ so few things like that happened before it, but yet your newsroom and, and, know, the other folks that covered it ⁓ were thinking differently even then. ⁓
Joe Hight: Well, you gotta remember we were shaped though, but what had happened before us. Edmund Post Office massacre, and I have to say that ⁓ that, ⁓ remember things that were done correctly and things that weren't done correctly. And the of ⁓ tornadoes and like that. So we were shaped by what ⁓ preceded us. when this ⁓ the newsroom had the foresight to look at differently than they had before. ⁓ we did, ⁓ we some criticism for how treated back then. because it wasn't covered that way before. And why ⁓ are you doing Why are you carrying all these drawings from kids around the country? And why are you doing all this stuff that's for the community? Because we understood the community was just as important. And I think it's just not our newsroom, but I think ⁓ other newsrooms. ⁓ television stations and other newsrooms also understood that in the community because this affected us and we saw journalists come in from the outside. And it wasn't a pretty scene. And we knew that we had to do it differently for the sake of that community. And I think that's why I think I look at this and I say holistically, I think mean that because if you don't do it holistically, it will have a dramatic effect on the victims, the community and then yourself.
Gretchen Hoak: the pleasure of visiting the Oklahoma City Memorial at the JET REG Conference a couple years ago and had never been. Highly recommend to anyone who is within driving distance of Oklahoma City. If you haven't been there, it's just a beautiful place. And I think really, to me, sort of resonated that community feeling that, you know, the entire community coming together to kind of bounce back, So sort of a plug for the OKC Memorial there. ⁓ It's a beautiful place. Yeah.
Joe Hight: Well, I would totally agree. I think that it presents a story that I think, reason why I love it too, the reason why I love it is because of the fact that the current executive director, long time executive directors from a journalistic family. And so she understood that she needed to tell a story as part of it and told a story that included journalists I felt that was just so incredible how the memorial and the people in memorial told that story. ⁓ to the point ⁓ that they searched. for every journalist who had been involved, including myself, and interviewed them as part
of it so they could tell more of the story. It's just so much hard work they put into this telling of this story that I think it's something that's an achievement for this community and ⁓ a that everyone needs to see. And that's why I'm saying, there was a lot of debate about whether we should leave the building or not because the eminent post office manager, I can still go to that post office. I can still go in and buy stamps from that post office. ⁓ But was a big debate of whether that leave to the building or not. In the end, they tore it down and they built this beautiful memorial with survivor tree that people want to protect. And I recently told this story to a group of students in Oklahoma. They did a series of reaching out across the state to school groups. And I was invited to be one of the speakers. And I told the group about the story about how people are putting coins in the survivor tree. Do you see the survivor tree when you're there?
Gretchen Hoak: Yep. Yeah.
Joe Hight: And now they send seedlings across the country with this survivor tree and people are putting coins in it and it was starting to kill the tree. And so they put out a notice and journalists jumped on this immediately. Because I think journalists felt this was part of our community as well and we needed to tell people that this was endangering something that was really, because that survivor tree is a symbol of how this city survived. I think every time I go to the memorial, I look at that tree as an example about how we survived ⁓ a charred twig to what it is today, and people stopped.
Gretchen Hoak: for for people who don't know, that's the tree that it survived the bombing. If memory serves right, it was ⁓ despite the devastation and everything that tree managed to to hang on and is now quite beautiful. It's it's large and it's it's a beautiful tree.
Joe Hight: Yes, you did. It is this gorgeous tree in downtown Oklahoma City part of the memorial. And to me, though, ⁓ symbolizes life and symbolizes how people rebuilt. So ⁓ I think me, it symbolizes the community in a lot of different ways. And I think that's why when. felt like it was being endangered, we reacted to the way we did to tell people this is our community, take care of it. And they don't do it anymore. And I think that's something that's very, very important think about is how these symbols are a part ⁓ a community and individuals resilience as well.
Gretchen Hoak: How do you think your experience covering the Oklahoma City bombing shaped your career after that?
Joe Hight: changed, ⁓ it changed my life in many different ways. And because that relationship that I formed when we did this training conference, I met Dr. ⁓ Frank Ochberg and we started talking forming an organization that would... appealed to journalists as a whole and he ⁓ like that, that I should a part of and I felt like I needed to be a part of something like that for the, so for the next decade after that, not ⁓ only in organizing the Center's now, Global Center for Trauma and Journalism, ⁓ but, informing what the Center is today. I spoke to journalists around the country. of fact, that's what I did. And I'm thankful the newsroom gave me the capacity to do that, to travel to different newsrooms, to different sites, to even locations outside of this country, to talk to them about the effect of trauma and treat it so it shaped me in so many ways. And from that point on, we decided we'd cover them differently. And we decided that we would have a counselor come in. I became, that's why I became good friends with Charlotte Lankard. Just an incredible individual. And we started learning from each other about how to work these types of events ⁓ the point I'm sorry, employee assistance programs aren't adequate for newsrooms in the aftermath of this. They just aren't. have to provide someone who has knowledge and a specialty ⁓ understands how to deal with journalists who covering this type of events. And we will find champions There was a sports columnist named Barry Tramley still the ⁓ one the sports columnist in the state's history ⁓ Exceptional at covering ⁓ the aftermath of events like this exceptional writer, so we would turn to Barry and we found ⁓ I say sports reporters are really good at covering these types of events because they know conflict. They've dealt with conflict all their lives. But Barry was also significant. Not only was he was outstanding in covering these types of events the aftermath, he was also outstanding in conveying that, hey, I use counseling and it worked for me. And people like Brian Painter and people like that were significant in saying, This stuff does affect me and I did have to turn to a counselor in order to help my issues. And to some point, some people just simply needed reassurance. I remember Charlotte telling me one reporter sent her an email and said, I just want to know. I'm having all these emotions and the aftermath of this. this normal? And she said, of course it's normal. And so they needed the reassurance too that, you're going through a lot, but there's a reason why you're going through a lot at this point in your life. And the impact of what you are doing will impact you as well.
Gretchen Hoak: when journalists, especially accomplished ones, are willing to step forward and say, hey, by the way, this really affected me in these ways and these are the things I had to do to kind of help myself through it because it does much to combat that sort of culture idea that journalists can't or shouldn't be affected by their work. And if you do, then that must somehow be bad. ⁓ so ⁓ I agree. think it's great you those sort of champions. think, like you said, step forward and say, hi, yeah, absolutely, this was awful. But here's what happened. ⁓
Joe Hight: Well, and I think those are the true heroes of this story. mean, those champions who step forward to say, this does affect me and this is how I got through it. But I still did my job.
Gretchen
Hoak: at the time of the Oklahoma City bombing, did you have a lot of younger reporters in the newsroom? or ⁓ was it more of a veteran newsroom?
Joe Hight: There were a combination. mean, there were younger reporters. I had a lot of young So I knew that they were being affected But also had lot of experienced reporters as well. ⁓ And have reporters, ⁓ I to say there were reporters who didn't want anything to do with it. wanted to step back from it as much as was possible. And at certain points we had to respect that. You could force to a certain point, but if a reporter truly does not want to be involved in it, and there may be personal reasons why, there has to be a certain amount of respect about that as well. And there are others who often do too much, and you kind of have to say, ⁓ draw a little bit, ⁓ take rest, take a break, do something like that. because you know that they are really wanting to do the job that's needed, but it's so overwhelming the job becomes too much.
Gretchen Hoak: You make a good point. think there's that place for sort of compassion, compassionate management as well. You know, that that newsroom leader being able to say either, OK, I respect your choice. You can't do this anymore. I get it. Or hey, you've done too much. You know, it's it's time for your own good to take a step back. I in all of this, there's that compassionate management that kind of has to exist as well to really ⁓ sort of make the most people get through it in the best way that they can.
Joe Hight: I've seen too many examples of it not being done. Early on, there was a debate among editors, and this was during the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing. Certain sided editors were going, well, we should never go down there. And I was on the side, yes, you should go down there. Because what are you sending people into? You need to understand what you're sending people into. If you don't, you really don't have a realistic picture. And today I wonder how many editors and directors are sending people into situations they themselves have no idea what they're sending their own people into. And I think that's a question that needs to be asked. You know, having witnessed these types of tragedies firsthand, I really understand that there's a difference between the type of editor who sends reporters in there understanding that they're putting their lives on the line. And you have to understand when you need to say, stop. I think I understand it more today than I did back then, but I started developing a better understanding of it when I saw the situation myself. think that's what I think editors have to understand and directors have to understand. When you send someone to knock on a door, ⁓ you do it yourself? And ⁓
Gretchen Hoak: Yeah, that's a great point. interviewed Lisa Krantz and Jesus Ayala for the show that and they both did work on Uvalde ⁓ their folks they spoke with as part of their studies, they both kind of had the same theme in there that. the reporters were upset because they were being asked to do things like stay at a funeral when the didn't want them there. And they were being sort of asked to do that or told to do that from editors in newsrooms hours away from Uvalde And there was that conflict of, ⁓ you know what I'm seeing here. I'm on the ground and I'm saying it's, I shouldn't be here, but you've got that person who isn't on the ground and probably doesn't have any idea what it might be like to be in that situation saying, no, you got to stay regardless.
Joe Hight: Yeah, I think some give and take there too. You have to understand that ⁓ have to listen to what their concerns are, most ⁓ if haven't witnessed it yourself. In writing book and ⁓ doing ⁓ own process and research on this, I've come to question parachute ⁓ reporting more more. It doesn't mean that you shouldn't send a reporter to a war zone, that you've to take care of that reporter if you do. But if you're sending a reporter to a community far away and it's not part of your usual coverage area, why? Why are you doing that? ⁓ when I... ⁓ see situations in which there's sensationalistic coverage. It's usually because a lot of parachute reporters have come to a scene all trying to get an angle that no one else has and being ultra aggressive about it and not understanding the impact. And I've seen that in almost every situation, it all has a commonalities. Is it seemingly the community reporters knew how ⁓ to cover their own community and the aftermath, yet the parachute reporters came in aggressive, wanting story angles that sometimes impossible to get, yet they were willing to do anything to get them. And I never forget that institute, we called it the Institute for Coverage of Victims in the media, I think, back in, I think it was 97. Never forget Donald Nyberg, a professor who lost his daughter in the TWA crash. I think there had been a group of teenagers, including his daughter. who got on this plane to go to Europe and ended up crashing almost minutes after taking off from JFK airport. And how angry he was. And I never forget how angry he was at that point. And I should say, why are you so angry about it? Because I asked reporters not to come to my daughter's funeral. And what did they do? They came to the
Gretchen Hoak: came to the funeral.
Joe Hight: funeral. I've asked for private grieving and they didn't allow me to have it and they caused more damage than good. So what does that say? ⁓ I've seen that in multiple locations where journalists were asked, ⁓ you do this to help us in our recovery process, yet journalists in the quest to be first would violate their own standards, violate people to do that. And that's something we still see today. And I think that that's something we have to really think about. How does that affect, ⁓ ourselves, the community, and people's perceptions of us? I talk about Oakland City bombing and different deals. People did things they shouldn't have done. ⁓ sneaking up flights of
stairs, doing stuff like that to get a picture or story that everyone has forgotten, but they knew, they know what that person did. And they remember that. And I always, I often ask students that, how do you want to be remembered? And I think we have to think about that. Is the legacy of journalism is in doubt today anyway. And I think our coverage of tragedy goes into that.
Gretchen Hoak: you mentioned your book which covers a lot of these these themes that that we've mentioned talk a little bit about your book ⁓ what about and why you decided to to write it.
Joe Hight: Well, decided right, it's called the intended title is The Traumatic Journey Moments in Time. And I wanted to ⁓ at this holistic approach, ⁓ only from what I've been through, but what different individuals from victims to community members ⁓ journalists, what they went through in doing this and the resilience they had in ⁓ this aftermath and what lessons ⁓ can learn from them. And dedicated it to community journalists. I said for all journalists who dedicate their journeys in life to their communities and their courageous coverage of them, even during mass tragedy. And maybe I should say that especially during mass tragedy. I think those are the ones that ⁓ consider this type of impact as So I told the story, ⁓ I stories of victims, ⁓ the one comes to mind immediately is the ⁓ two best friends who drove to work today. Sue Burgess and Eileen Kingston and Eileen has since passed away because of cancer. But Sue, Eileen her daughter. Cole went to work together that morning, that beautiful Sunday morning Port Arthur, which is the tourist site where people, basically the British sent all their prisoners ⁓ across ocean to be in Tasmania, which is that island off the coast of Australia. ⁓ And ⁓ so it became this big tourist side. ⁓ And so ⁓ what happened there... be the toll booth operator, Sue would handle basically the day director and a co-worker in the cafeteria, not knowing ⁓ that what happen that day that someone would come in and just randomly kill people. ⁓ And from day, Sue lost her daughter. Eileen was stalked by the killer, in a cabin in a toll booth to save her own life. But their story goes beyond just the fact that they were victims and survivors of this tragedy. It goes on to how their friendship became deeper as the years passed. And how they begin to rely on each other to get through not only this traumatic event, but other traumatic events in their lives and support each other and things like that. And I felt honored that I met them during the 10th anniversary of the Port Arthur Massacre. I went to Australia to speak on behalf of the Dart Center as part of it and they also were speaking. And so I stayed in touch with them through the years and then went back to interview them for the story. And I'll never forget how, again, I was in Eileen's home and she was telling me how deeply hurt she was by journalists and how the... on people's privacy and she just could not stand
journalists. I had to say, at one point I think I stopped and I said, Dileen, you realize I'm a journalist. And she says, I know, but you're different. So how can we distinguish ourselves as being different? And I think that's what I want the book to tell, not only stories of these types of these people, these communities, the resilience of these types of individuals, also the journalist ⁓ some incredible journalists from Maria to David Hanshu to John Pope. ⁓ to Mike Walter, to these types of journalists who went through these types of tragedies and were able to tell stories themselves it. So that's what I want the book to do. It's not only this holistic approach, but to tell stories as part of it. So I include myself in the initial parts of each chapter about something I went through, but the ⁓ of the book, I tell people's stories. And that's what I wanted to do is tell stories about what they went through and then what happened in the aftermath well. And hopefully ⁓ will get a sense from it is, well one, there's a lot of resilience out there. There's a lot of spirit that lives within people. There's lot of courage that these individuals in these communities had and there's that I learned. from reading this book that I didn't know before. And sometimes even interviews that, like Eileen wasn't gonna talk to another journalist. These are interviews that were conducted in such that people did not want to talk journalists. I went into Amish homes to interview in Pennsylvania and interviewed a community Northern Island journalists and I felt they were such a community. to themselves because they were so affected by what happened during the troubles. So they formed a community as well in the midst of many communities that happened in the aftermath and during that as well. So I hope the book tells a story to people but also provides a lesson that this is how we can be better.
Gretchen Hoak: the audience you're hoping for the book, working journalists or really anyone who's interested in media and history and these events?
Joe Hight: It's more to a general audience. I don't want it, I hate to say this, but I don't like textbooks. I think textbooks really serve a great purpose. They really do. But I want it to be a story that everyone could read and see that, hey, there are people out there that really care. I mean, really care. And they're just not journalists. But there are people in the communities, the... ⁓ from psychologists to researchers to educators to journalists that really care about people and what happens to people, especially when tragedy affects them. And also about ⁓ reading people's journeys. through something that really affected them. You Mike Walter, I tell Mike Walter's story because Mike has witnessed the plane going into the Pentagon, to this people still don't believe him. Even though he saw it, they still don't believe him. And why people believe conspiracy, so there's always a theme behind each story, but I also... ⁓
Gretchen Hoak: Ha ha.
Joe Hight: show people the connections from a tragedy that would happen in Oklahoma City to what would happen in Northern Ireland to what would happen in Norway. There's all these connections and not only how they were perpetrated but how people reacted to them in the aftermath and how people survived and what people did to survive in the aftermath and how it changed them and changed their lives. Sometimes tragically, but sometimes it changed their lives that they ended up helping others Diane Leonard who lost her husband in the Oklahoma City bombing, She ended up being a victim advocate and she ended up doing everything she could to help victims in the immediate aftermath Just anything she could do to help, she would do. And then suddenly she changed. She decided that she had to withdraw from all of it. And so it was about how she changed over time. And there are certain people that were very out front then that aren't so today. because their lives changed and it changed them. so Diane still speaks, I listened to her recently she provided a lesson because talked to me about and how ⁓ victims really never and their families really have closure. they remember what occurred on that day and almost every day they think about it. And I often ask students and journalists that have you ever had a deep tragedy happen to you? ⁓ people have. And do you think about it all the time? Do you really have closure? And they go, no, not really. Then why do we as journalists keep pushing that word? Is that what we want? ⁓ And then I get other themes as well about the sense of forgiveness and how journalists want to automatically say people forgive. Well, even the Amish don't automatically forgive. It's a process ⁓ for them as well everyone else ⁓ who ultimately come to conclusion that I forgive. Well, it's a process because they have to go through it as well. But we want to automatically say, well, ⁓ ⁓ my gosh, they forgive. Why do they do that? You know, and things like that. So it's all these cliches we've built over time. We have to think about deconstructing and rethinking how we cover these types of tragedies.
Gretchen Hoak: the great thing about the book as you're describing is, is I do think could also be powerful teaching tool because students don't like textbooks, but a narrative form taking them through the experiences of people. ⁓ related to these specific traumatic events could be a very powerful teaching tool because without having been out in the field. They're learning the effects of tragedy ⁓ on themselves, on people who are involved in the tragedy ⁓ and those sort missteps that journalists can sometimes fall into when trying to cover tragedy. So ⁓ I think there's lot of valuable lessons in there that could be really great for student journalists and younger journalists who haven't had that opportunity yet to something traumatic, but they will.
Joe Hight: Yeah, what I learned the most was with sitting in and listening to people tell
their stories and that you know from journalists to to victims to people involved in communities and sitting there listening because I'd often you know be involved in training myself but I would be fortunate enough to be able to sit in when people talked about what happened to them and hearing their stories were many times inspiring. ⁓ So ⁓ I was personally inspired by individual stories and I felt like this book a place to tell those stories. ⁓ have to say that, ⁓ it was interesting, ⁓ doing interviews and everything like this because everyone was different. There were people didn't want to talk. that talked to me originally. so I had to work through a different type of, I still am working with them to tell their stories and telling them, even those who said, I don't think my story is that important. Yeah, your story is really important because it tells something to others who need to read about it. And some people understand that. So there's a chapter by chapter on telling these stories. And the interviews go way back to, I interviewed, I think, John Pope in 2018. But again, all these different types of tragedies, they all seem to have a connection and so tragic. To me, one of the most tragic stories of all this is Katrina. And there's been so many books written about Katrina. I don't need to write another book about Katrina. I really don't. But I could write a certain part about Katrina that people may have not had read before. and why that was particularly impactful on me as well as to, it should be impactful on others. And I called it the forgotten victims because I don't think today they really know how many people actually died in the aftermath of those levy breaches because, they were estimating up to 25 % people didn't have cars. They couldn't get out. and they didn't know what happened to a lot of these people in the aftermath. So if you look, there's different types of tallies all over the place about the number who died and things like that. So I tell the story about a house, and one house in which I know there was five victims in it, because I could read the Xs it five. And so I covered with this silt, it was right on the levee, and the levee broke.
Gretchen Hoak: Mm-hmm. ⁓
Joe Hight: miles away from where the impact should have been and it killed these five people in this house and who they were still don't know who they were. The house is no longer there. So, you know, I kind of made it a kind of a theme about forgotten victims and how people are often forgotten. in the aftermath, but they still had lives like you and me. I think my quest from the book is to tell that story, but to continue the quest to find out who those odd people are.
Gretchen Hoak: Well, it sounds like it was ⁓ very intense but very important journey through these different aspects of trauma. When can we expect to be able to see the book, read the book, ⁓ it? Great.
Joe Hight: It's scheduled to be out this fall. ⁓ so Roadrunner Press, I am going through the editing process right now. With books, you really know. I own a bookstore, so I know that this is a process when it's all right. But I'm hopeful ⁓ that it'll be out fall, if not, at least by next year. ⁓ But I'm told it's out fall.
Gretchen Hoak: The book sounds fascinating and I'm definitely looking forward to being able to read it. you have any other projects on the horizon? What's next for you?
Joe Hight: You know, I hope that there's some other books in line perhaps and not something as deep as the last two books I've written, but hopefully there are other books that I can write. I love the fact that Roadrunner Press is publishing the book and ⁓ Devlin, who's ⁓ ⁓ publisher, ⁓ she ⁓ me she wants to ⁓ books that make a difference. And I just hope that I can be a small person on this earth who wrote something that made a difference.
Gretchen Hoak: Thank you so much. This conversation has been very fascinating and you've had quite the career and really your focus on trauma from all of its aspects while deep ⁓ you need a break from it ⁓ still very, very important.
Joe Hight: Well, need to thank you too, because as I've told you in person, you're one of the early ones who were actually at forefront of doing research and writing about this. And ⁓ you the lone voice. ⁓
Gretchen Hoak: you've got quite the legacy in your 50 years. ⁓
Joe Hight: that I could see and I thought somebody's paying attention to this when no one else is. And it's, to me it's so heartening today to see so many people are now looking into this and seeing the importance of it and to do research on it. But you were that person many years ago that was actually doing that. And I can't tell you how appreciative I am for you doing that.
Gretchen Hoak: Well, I appreciate it and it is nice to see there are more people who have jumped in the pool to swim as well because it's an important topic and I am glad there's so many voices out there talking about it now.
Joe Hight: I I totally agree.