A Thumping Heart In A Novice Journalist

This is my first blog entry, EVER, so I will probably keep it short. It has been an awfully long week already, and it is only Thursday night. No telling what tomorrow has in store for us.

I am reflecting back on today's events and keep coming back to the image of the Minneapolis bridge collapse in my mind. Seeing the pictures of the disaster made my heart race; it felt like it would thump out of my chest. My very own fight or flight reaction, and I was not even at the scene. There was a moment when I almost teared up thinking of how horrible those few minutes must have been when innocent people lost their lives. So, what does this mean for me as a journalist? Will this happen to me when I'm on the scene of a disaster, or will my "reporter instinct" kick in and I won't notice the chaos around me? Can I have too much empathy? Should I try to suppress the rise of empathy when it starts to surface?

LT