Weighing the public good versus private pain

Point, focus, shoot.

My brain seems to turn off when I’m tasked with a photo assignment. I find my desired object, hold the shutter and pray a photo turned out OK.

I’ll pull up the photos on my computer in the office and check if anything is usable, or maybe squint at the LCD screen on my camera before I run out of time for another attempt.

No matter the subject or location, my goal always remains the same: Capture the heart of the story in a still image.

That’s what I was trying to do the night of March 9 at a fatality accident in Alvord.

Local resident Jeff Taylor was killed last Saturday when his pickup struck the trailer of a semi on the U.S. 81/287 crossover near the Punjabi Dhabba restaurant. When I got to the scene, I took photos of the collision. 

Over the following days, I tried to treat the accompanying story with the utmost care. I reached out to TxDOT about how it would address this dangerous stretch of road and gathered feedback from people who travel that area frequently.

When I first noticed the name on social media, my heart sank. I remember seeing the joy on his face on the sidelines after his son hit a game-winning field goal months ago. Community journalism is personal, and these stories hurt. So, I used that as motivation. I thought I was putting together a thoughtful story on this highway crossover that creates tragedy on a near-daily basis. I envisioned a story with potential to inspire some change.

That’s why I chose the picture of the pickup, the one that was posted on our website and Facebook page earlier this week. While it’s not dissimilar from the countless photos commonly published by news organizations (including the Wise County Messenger) for fatality stories, this struck a nerve, and not in the way that I intended.

My hope was that someone — an elected official, maybe a TxDOT representative — would see the photo and feel the same way I did. Maybe they could come to know the grim reality of how many lives have been altered at that highway crossover. It’s all you can hope for when you cover the same stories over and over again. 

I don’t sit around waiting for the next tragedy to report on or take a photo of. I can promise you with every fiber in my being that I didn’t want to write the fatality story.

Maybe I lost sight of others’ feelings in my efforts to make an impact with a story. I’m still worried that I damaged some good will with people in Wise County by using the photo.

I realize now that I hurt the Taylor family and many of their friends. That was not my intention.

But I do hope the tragic event will spark a conversation about improvements and much-needed safety measures to the highway. 

Maybe there’s someone out there who can influence this conversation who grew uneasy while looking at the photo. Maybe their uncomfortability with it will lead them to opening a dialogue.

It’s all I can hope for, and all I ever wanted since reporting the wreck.

As Wise County does time and time again, the community has already stepped up. Some Alvord residents created a petition lobbying for a safer highway (wcmess.com/287petition), which reached 1,000 signatures Tuesday night. 

Reach out to your local and state officials about the U.S. 81/287 crossover. Contact TxDOT like others have already. 

Tell them you never want to see one of my wreck photos in the newspaper ever again.