Live Shot

     

Station to Station: The Joe Mullowney story

The recent murders of Virginia television reporter Alison Parker and her cameraperson/videographer Adam Ward affected me more than all the other senseless violence stories currently grabbing headline attention. The images of the murder victims were etched in my mind because of their familiarity. Adam Ward's career so closely paralleled my own son’s life it was uncanny, not to mention the uncanny physical resemblance. I’m still shaken by this story two weeks later.

     My son Joe is the same age as Adam Ward. He is employed at a major Boston television station working as a camera person with reporters on the street. Joe is at the same point in his career as Adam Ward was, a career he loves with all his heart. He loves the art of videography. Nothing brings him more joy than capturing a perfectly lit scene while he films the reporters who bring the world crashing into our living rooms during the nightly news broadcast. The breaking news stories are big and brash, full of bluster and noise, with lots of drama and intensity – kind of like Joe himself.

     Occasionally, Joe sends me photos from inside the news van of himself and his reporters when they are between stories. I love getting a rare glimpse behind the scenes of broadcast television. These photos show happy, smiling faces of people who work hard and love what they do. These photos are identical to the ones I saw posted on the news of Alison Parker and Adam Ward from WDBJ-7 in Virginia. Every snapshot of their young faces broadcast during the murder reports chilled me to the bone. I've seen the same photos before, sent to me by my son working with his own smiling reporters.

     Being fatally shot during a live broadcast makes the story even more grotesque. The time of the murders, 6:45 am, is a time you would least expect anything earth shattering to happen to you. And the location – inside a children’s water park – could not be less threatening. No wonder the television crew's guard was let down before they were gunned down.

     I worried about my son Joe when he graduated college and began his career as a “stringer”, chasing news stories in his beloved Crown Victoria. When his dashboard police scanner beeped, he sped off to the crime scene like a superhero, armed with only a video camera. He was always first to arrive, before the short-staffed local television networks could find an available reporter. He sold his news footage to all the Boston networks. He even contemplated contacting CNN to see if they needed a young roving reporter to do first person war correspondence in Afghanistan or Iraq. I was relieved when a Boston television station offered Joe a full-time job. “At least he’s safe,” I thought. I didn’t know how wrong I was.

     Working in a top ten news market gives Joe inside access to people, places and events the rest of us only experience second hand – from the finish line of the Boston Marathon during the 2013 bombings to President Obama playing golf on Martha’s Vineyard. Sure, there are glamorous assignments at Gillette Stadium and Boston Garden, but there are also tragic stories from inner city neighborhoods and uncovered horrors in picturesque small towns.

     “Do the news stories you cover affect you?” I asked my son.

     “I see these stories through the filter of my camera lens, Dad. It’s just me doing my job.” he responded.

     Good answer, I thought. But it’s a different story when he puts his camera down.