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Like many alumni of Chippewa Falls Senior High School I was numb after hearing the news of last week’s tragic bus crash involving the high school band.

Like many people, my mind raced as I tried to think of people who I knew who may have been on the bus. I thought about all of the times I rode on a Chippewa Trails bus on my way to a marching band competition when I was teenager. I prayed.

But unlike many Chi-Hi alums, I knew the tragedy would not only impact me because I would be acquainted with some of those involved, but also because it would be waiting for me at work Monday morning.

Working from these two perspectives gave me a view of the tragedy that was different from that of most people. Looking back on the days immediately after the crash, it’s important for local news and the media relations departments of some organizations to review the way they handled the tragic accident.

As someone who was able to see the tragedy from both sides of the table – a concerned Chi-Hi alumna and a reporter – its clear to me the tragedy showed not only the class of some, but also the lack of professionalism of others.

The region’s news teams shined in the wake of this awful event. The broadcast journalists working for local radio stations did outstanding work by getting some of the first information about the crash out to the Chippewa Valley.

The two local TV news stations did what only they could do by broadcasting live feeds of the news conferences held by the Wisconsin State Patrol and Chippewa Falls Superintendent Mike Schoch.

And local print journalists, from both the Chippewa Herald and the Leader-Telegram, which I work for, moved me with in-depth stories. Reporters and photographers from both papers were able to show, rather than tell, the stories. They gave us a glimpse of the terror of the crash. They highlighted the intense love students had for their band director, Doug Greenhalgh, who was one of five people killed in the accident.

The public has a need to know what’s going on when a tragedy occurs. They need to know names, they need to know what happened. They need to know why it happened. And they need that information in a timely manner.

To not inform the public in a time of tragedy only fuels rumors and can lead to more harm than good.

In the case of the tragic bus crash, people wanted to know if someone they knew or loved was hurt. They wanted to know if someone they knew or loved was alive. They wanted to know why this awful event happened.

But no one deserves to be harassed.

Reporters from around the region joined in the frenzy of covering the crash. Students and parents were hounded for interviews. School officials finally asked all media to leave school grounds.

I know the rush of adrenaline that comes when covering a tragedy. I know the instinct to turn the tragedy, the people and the situation into work. I’ve been there, telling myself to write and wait to cry about it when I get home.

But too often we as journalists forget the human side of tragedy. We must put ourselves in the shoes of those impacted by the event before, during and after we report. Our work will only be better if we do this important step.

Perhaps the group that disappointed me the most, as a reporter and a student from Chippewa Falls, was UW-Eau Claire’s own News Bureau. With the tragedy occurring early Sunday morning, the News Bureau should have been prepared to assist local news agencies early Monday morning.

The real world doesn’t always operate on weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The professionals here at Eau Claire dropped the ball by forgetting about those impacted by the tragedy here at the university. A mass e-mail should have been sent late Sunday night or early Monday morning to all members of the university community. It never was.

As of March 2003, the Dean of Students office said it would ask the News Bureau to send a campus wide e-mail relating student deaths to the campus community. In most cases, it does.

“Students feel a companionship with other students,” former Associate Dean of Students Bob Shaw said in a March 31, 2003 issue of The Spectator. “Losing other students is a challenging experience, even when they didn’t know (the student who died).”

I was only able to find this connection at work. Eau Claire never gave me that chance.

MacLaughlin is a senior print journalism major and editorial editor of The Spectator. Mac Mouths Off is a weekly column that appears every Thursday.