Journalists shot, killed in Virginia during live shot

I'm talking about the interview subject.

 

ABC News ‏@ABC 2m2 minutes ago
.@ABC News received a 23-page fax from someone who says he is Bryce Williams. We have turned it over to authorities. Suspect in On-Air Virginia Shooting Identified

 

ABC News reports it just received a 23-page fax from the suspect.

 

He'll be dead by the end of the day. Either by shooting himself or the cops shooting him.

But his twitter feed made clear he held a grudge and waited. I suspect he knew that the fiancee was in the control and wanted her to see the camera guy getting shot.

I think he also wanted the camera guy to point the camera at him while they were live so he could then pull the trigger.

I don't this is what they meant when they said the revolution would be televised.

 

That video is insane.

 

My shock over the killings has now reached about seven new levels, considering that the shooter actually recorded it while doing the firing.

I'll backtrack on some of my initial concern about live shots and safety. We do too many of them in TV news and, in full truth, the viewer would probably get more information if the reporter was in the studio using graphics and other technology. But this was a live interview - a time-filler on a feature story so that the live reporter would have something to do.

I've done live shots in places where I haven't felt close to 100% safe but am fortunate in that most of my producers are understanding if we have safety concerns over evening live shots in dicey locations where it's really not necessary.

Given that the shooter appears to have been a former co-worker, that has me thinking a little bit about the people I've encountered. I've seen four or five photographers fired in 20+ years of this business because they had some major temper issues and I could have seen two of them popping off and maybe even getting dangerous violent, maybe even at this level.

For all of the "coming together" in the TV news business, it is a bitterly competitive venture as well. It's high-stress, often inconsistent hours. It's brutally honest when you're in a creek at 4:17 in the morning trying to do a live shot when nothing has changed in 9 hours yet you have to still report from there.

Nearly all of us start out like minor-league ballplayers, trying to play our way from Rookie ball to the Texas League to "The Show" (network, a major market, a large hometown). For those of us who didn't reach "The Show" (like myself, as I left sports a long time ago and Bristol was my end goal), we settle into a decent gig and try to help young reporters and photographer reach their end goal. It's extremely gratifying when a young person gets better and moves to a big town. Yet there are also scores and scores of other young reporters who just aren't good enough - whether it's work ethic, lack of writing skill, lack of ambition, whatever.

I mention this because, when people in this line of work realize they just aren't talented (or personable) enough to keep their job or move on to their career goals, they do snap from time to time.

But never like this.

 

With all of this calculated craziness by him, how did someone somewhere not see it? HR even? I guess you don't expect the worst, and this is damn close in terms of work crap, but man. I mean he fucking put a video of it on FB. Somewhere, some how he had to show some signs. Right?

 

When I'm doing a live shot, I'm "locked in". I probably wouldn't have noticed it, either.

 

My pulse started to race when I watched that video of him approaching them, then seeing the gun. That is fucking horrifying.

 

@WHSVChanning

Police say #WBDJ suspect near Linden, VA line on I-66 say suspect has shot himself.

 

He added smiley faces to his LinkedIn profile.