Working through the guilt of not covering this pandemic
When news breaks, I am called to perform, inform, report, write. But it's an itch I'm hardly scratching.
I’m no longer part of a newsroom, but loved ones (and friends of friends) have been coming to me with pandemic needs and questions and requests for coverage. A nurse with an aging, immunocompromised father at home; medical students and vacationers stranded abroad as borders close; patients with symptoms unable to get tested.
It’s understandable, especially if I’m the only acquaintance they know with any connection at all to a megaphone. I don’t know how to tell them there’s little I can do aside from a message or email to staff reporters in the middle of it all. I’ve pitched a few commissioned covid-19 stories here and there, but editor responses have been delayed and outlets are repeatedly telling me frankly yet kindly: “We have so many staff writers covering coronavirus that we wouldn’t be able to commission this freelance piece. I hope you find a good publication home for it.”
Last week, I reached out to a few editors at my former paper to let them know I’m here and able to cover stories and help with whatever they need—but at a cost, of course. This is my living; I will need to be paid for my work. They’re keeping me in the loop and I’ve been sharing sources and tips as the pandemic strengthens here in Georgia. But I know how limited newsroom resources are in general, how tight things must be right now. I understand.
And can I be honest? I don’t want to write about this virus. I don’t. I feel anxious just thinking about the interviews and the reporting; I can barely read a full news story as a consumer without feeling the world clamping down on my shoulders, without stumbling into crippling hopelessness. I am not capable of leaving this kind of work at the doorstep. It’s why I left the traditional workplace months ago; I knew that when my own mental health was suffering, going to work meant risking a want for one more tomorrow. I needed more control over when and how and why and for how long I danced with journalism at all.
Still, there’s the itch. When news breaks, I am called to perform, inform, report, produce, write. It is a need, never a want, to spread the word, spark some change. This is a trait ingrained in nearly every news staffer I’ve ever met. It is unrelenting; the impulse is praiseworthy and inspiring, but dangerous if not managed. It is especially dangerous without public kindness, without personal support, without a sense of fulfillment at the end of the day.
When you don’t act on that itch, the guilt, too, is suffocating. Like having a superpower you hardly use, a superpower with the power to kill you, but a neglected superpower nonetheless. I have worked hard to stifle that need to jump at every call to action and overcome the guilt of not being part of an ongoing team effort to seek and spew truth. And I will be honest: I have fallen in love with the free-er, softer and more creative human born from my first six months as an independent writer.
But then something like this happens, and I don’t know what to do—do I act on this journalistic impulse? And how do I move forward, if the opportunities as a freelancer don’t exist? Do I take pay cuts, write for free? Of course not. Do I write in other ways, in other forms, in my own words, in non-journalistic fashion but still doing my part to exist among the bylines and names you can rely on during this pandemic?
Or do I write fiction instead? Poetry, or even a song? Something for someone to lose or find themselves within as the air grows too fragile to inhale? Should I stay away from that newsy itch and continue my novel work instead? Do the stories I write during this… do they matter? Do they need to matter? What does the world need or want from me; what am I uniquely equipped to do?
If I’m going to participate at all, it seems it will be in a slowing down of sorts. I am afraid of getting lost in the noise, the numbers, the panic choking our throats. As I write through this—and writing this out is how I seem to have reached any decision at all—I’m realizing I am drawn to creation over dissemination. And so the guilt remains.
—fiza