Publish Day - Beslan, 2 months later

My latest column in the the London Free Press, Beslan suffering knows no bounds, focuses on the aftermath of September’s hostage-taking and subsequent massacre in this Russian town. Through a colleague who went to the wall to ensure I could write this piece (thanks, Olya!), I was lucky enough to gain access to someone who lives in a nearby city (Vladikavkaz) and has visited the stricken town often since

Her stories were unbelievably poignant, which left me with a feeling of enormous responsibility as I wrote the column. I felt my puny little words needed to somehow step up to the plate to do justice to what this stricken town had gone through - and will continue to go through for generations.

My colleague will be sending her a copy of the article: I hope when she reads it she realizes just how much people care.

Interestingly, I used the thesis of disposable headlines as the basis for the column. We tend to forget today's big story when tomorrow's headlines push it off of the front page - and out of our minds. Yet what's always bothered me as a journalist is how stories seem to go on for significantly longer periods of time, and are virtually ignored by the media. It's not a knock against journalism, though. Rather, that's just the way media works: there is only so much space to go around, and that space has to go to the top stories of the day. Ongoing, lingering, quiet suffering typically doesn't garner top-level attention.

I can't change the way the world works. But I can try to redirect the flashlight every once in a while. I hope that's the case this time out.