The area of the Virginia Blue Ridge mountains where cameraman Adam Ward and reporter Alison Parker were murdered on Wednesday morning is both a quiet, spacious community filled with greenery and also one of the most important areas for political campaigning in the whole United States. It’s a place where American issues play out writ small, in ways that can affect governance on a grand scale.
The station, WDBJ, covers a small market area – the 68th-largest in the nation – but it is a huge player when the national elections come around. Every four years, the CBS affiliate becomes a focal point for presidential campaigns; both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama held rallies there in 2012. It is a swing area in a swing state.
WDBJ itself is an oasis in a down economy. In 2012, the station made millions from electioneering candidates who suddenly needed to buy $1,600 spots on old daytime re-runs in the few weeks before the polls opened. General manager Jeffrey Marks said in 2012 that the station put that money back into its people – new equipment, new bells and whistles for its broadcasts, and new hires.
It is both a force to be reckoned with and an integral part of the community. Marks lets the United Way (for which he’s chairman of the board) use WDBJ’s common room.
Amid wider economic struggles, local TV stations like WDBJ remain havens for young people trying to break into media: employees like Parker and Ward, both very young (Parker was 24; Ward, 27), are often among the first people hired by the station after political ad dollars come in.
Marks spent the morning on the air, his voice breaking, as he remembered his colleagues – Ward as a devoted fiance, reporter and Virginia Tech fan, Parker for her sunny disposition. The murder happened live on the air, and Marks said that was the first and last time it would be shown by WDBJ, despite decisions by other news outlets to run it more or less continuously. “We’re choosing not to run that video right now, because frankly we don’t need to see it again,” he told viewers.
Marks said he had asked Chris Hurst, Parker’s boyfriend, to tell him something about Parker for the broadcast. “I can’t just tell you one thing,” Hurst told Marks. “She was everything. She brightened up every room.”
