When reporters become part of the story

Many readers of the Monitor’s Weekly magazine know that our first package of news stories is most often categorized “Humanity Behind the Headlines.”

As news journalists, we follow a general convention of keeping our presence out of the stories we cover, focusing on those affected by a news event or important issue. We write in a tone and with a style that mostly removes our emotions and opinions from a story.

But this week, the humanity behind our headlines includes Monitor journalists who live in Greater Los Angeles. They are not just covering this historic conflagration; they are living it.

In the newsroom, as the scope and devastation of the fires was just starting to become clear in early January, there was concern, and even a hint of panic, when we couldn’t immediately reach a Monitor writer. When the person finally checked in, relief.

For the magazine team, the quickly moving Los Angeles fires were a kind of “stop the presses” moment. We had this issue of the Weekly planned and mostly laid out, and it featured an international cover story about the decline of the German automaker Volkswagen by special correspondent Lenora Chu.

But as we pivoted to rearrange this issue as quickly as we could, it soon became clear that, for us, this was not just a rapid response to a disaster affecting a lot of people. It was affecting a part of our family.

I’ve known my colleagues Francine Kiefer and Ali Martin for years, and they both have decades of experience.

Francine covered the fall of the Berlin Wall and spent years in Washington covering the White House and then Congress. Ali covered the NATO peacekeeping mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the impact of the crash of Flight 93 in Pennsylvania during 9/11. This winter, again, they are intrepid professionals covering a crisis.

Both of them sprang into action as the fires began to rage. But at the same time, the crisis was theirs, their homes and families potentially at risk. It was a personal story for them, and together, we decided they should write from a first-person point of view, and report their own worries and laments and vulnerabilities as they relayed the news.

Or, in other words, their own humanity behind the headlines. We are all grateful that neither lost her home or a loved one during a time of trauma for so many.

As I edited Francine's and Ali's stories, I felt I got to know them in such a deeper way. My hope is that Monitor readers will as well.

This column first appeared in the Feb. 3 issue of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly. Subscribe today to receive future issues of the Monitor Weekly magazine delivered to your home.