Dear Editor: Reporting in the Field

Dear Editor,

I wholeheartedly agree with your editorial, not as a reader, but as a career reporter who also just happened to grow up in Whitehall.

There’s a time and place for everything and a small rural paper is neither when it comes to graphic photographs of tragic events.

I’ve been a beat reporter in northern California, covering police, fire and emergency news since 1999. My camera never leaves my side, my scanner is always on, and there are images in my head I wish I could replace with just the text.

As reporters and photographers, we take many photos at tragic scenes, not because we thi...