Richard Adkins
Chief Photographer


There’s nothing like a satisfying day at work! You’re on a high, you’ve achieved great things today, hit a home run, beat the competition and you can’t wait to brag about your day!
(This is the scene where a gruesome crime occured.)
So the story goes like this: “There was this guy, and his wife, and police searched their house and found chopped up body parts!” Of course you can’t just stop there…. “Wait it gets better, the couple lost both their kids in a fire 13 years ago!”
(I see the world in a black and white viewfinder... that's just another shield between myself and the stories.)
People say we (as journalist) have a jaded sense of humor. They say we don’t feel, we’re cold, and we’ve grown hardened. OK, I admit guilt. There is that shield we put up in order to get through the day. There are only so many “Dead Baby Knocks” you can make in a lifetime before it starts to get to you. So our coping method is often to simply turn off the emotion, focus on the task at hand and not let it get to you.

(My truck, parked in the weeds, seems poetic.)

So tonight I’m going to dwell on the fact that we delivered a well thought-out story giving all the who-what-when-where-why details. We gave just a touch of insight, we delivered pictures with meaning. We began what will no doubt be a long series of stories until we deliver understanding of just how all this could happen. That’s what I’ll focus on. Because if I don’t, I’ll think about what really happened, and there’s only so much of that you can take.