about this.

Half of me says “HOLY CRAP!! THAT’S EVIL!!!”

the other half says “mmm…a meal AND $50,000…I need to find a rabbit.”

Back when I was first going to college, I wanted to minor in Mass Communications, I thought it would go really well with my computer science degree, and hey, I might enjoy some classes making movies and stuff.

Now I’m glad I didn’t. Tonight, the very day of the Red Lake Shooting, and I am at work at a hospital about 26 miles away. I have the unpleasant task of being the only one working the phones from 11PM to 5AM. I also have to watch out for the media in the lobby, and to stop them from getting to any of the family.

I’ve heard tales about how the national news media is bloodthirsty and evil, but tonight proves how wrong these tales are. These people are worse.

They’re like a bunch of…well, I was going to say vultures, but at least vultures will hold off until their prey is dead before descending and picking it apart. They’re more like Jackals. Hell bent on ripping anything they can apart in order to get their story.

I even had one lady say to our security guard as he was kicking her out: “It’s not about the story…It’s…I can’t explain.”

Now I’d be more kind in my assessment and understanding of her inability to articulate what drives her…if she wasn’t trying to get a walkie-talkie to one of the family members on the patient’s floor in order to have him notified when their interview was to take place. Good Morning America I believe it was.

And then there are the interminable phone calls about more information than I have, and the non-stop wanting to speak to our public rep at the hospital. And their befuddlement when I tell them that I neither have her pager, nor her phone number and am therefore unable to call her for them to speak to her.

And then there started a rumor shortly after one of these calls, apparently, about how she had granted a show earlier play time at like 8 or so, before the OFFICIAL press conference. These rumors spread like wildfire…Soon that was the reason being given for wanting me to page them in….over and over I’d get “Well, it’s been rumored that your public rep will appear on another station earlier..” and “Is it possible for us to get in on that?”

I met ONE decent journalist. Only one. Someone who came up to the desk, asked for information. Took what little I had from the administration, smiled and said thank you. Then asked where the restrooms were, and if she could sit down and warm up from being in her car. She sat very quietly and unobstrusively in the corner, when our security guard found out she was a journalist and hustled her out of the lobby.

She may have been a bad journalist, I don’t know. But she wins kudos for being a good person.

I’ve talked to many many people in the news business tonight…from Sky News in London(who couldn’t believe we didn’t have someone to talk to them live on TV about the situation) to the other side of the globe from an Australian News team(who also was a bit put out by not having a live person who they could chat with), and pretty much everywhere in between with network affiliates from NBC, CBS, CNN, you name it they were here. The only network that I think didn’t call in was FOX. But they were probably here in person. Who knows.

I shouldn’t fault them for their jobs…even when they weren’t getting their way they were polite. But it was that confrontational sort of politeness where you knew that the moment they could, they’d turn on you.

Turn on you like the jackals they are.

I just finished speaking with a co-worker of Amy E’s, some of you know Amy, and most would probably know her laugh… She was an employee teacher up at Red Lake, and many people have been unable to get a hold of her today. Apparently her cell phone is locked up in the school…she’s safe at a friend’s house. She is physically unharmed, I haven’t spoken to her yet, but she is safe.

I’m dealing with work a lot better than I was when I got here.

power of prayer people, power of prayer.