There are legitimate questions about how to handle these things, and it's far too easy to tip over into scare-mongering. Many newsrooms have policies about reporting on strange powders and unsubstantiated bomb threats, refusing to give the story any oxygen, unless it causes massive disruption.
So, for instance, a bomb threat that forces the evacuation of a warehouse in Onehunga might not make any news bulletins, but one that shuts down several major streets in central Wellington might lead the news, even though they have the same cause, and same lack of result.
There has certainly been a lot more sensitivity around these kinds of things since the Christchurch mosque shootings. Everyone is on edge because all those worst nightmares did come true on that sunny Friday afternoon. This is why editors and reporters and producers need to keep an eye on any reports of any disturbances, and on all police call-outs and reported threats, because they might be something that needs to be reported on.
Still, at least now we know it doesn't take long to work out the difference between annoying hoax and terrible reality.
There are many lessons to be learned from the press coverage of the shootings and their aftermath, and we've still got a fucking long way to go yet. But one horrible lesson that this country's newsrooms have learned is that it when things are really bad, when the worst case scenario becomes reality, the news doesn't take long to spread.
The first reports of a disturbance at the Christchurch mosques came from vague reports of an urgent emergency in the central city, no different from the dozens and dozens of similar alarms that go out every month.
But within minutes, the first reports of shots came through. They were unsubstantiated, from locals who heard the harsh sounds of gunfire cutting through a Friday afternoon in autumn and that was the first sign that something truly horrible had happened.
And within half an hour, the real horror was evident. The day was a blur for most of us, as the scale got worse and worse, until it was confirmed, some hours later, that dozens were dead. But it only took moments for everybody to get the news that something really significant had happened.
The weeks and months since have seen many urgent incidents, reports of people seen with guns, schools and workplaces placed on lockdown, and every time there is the horrible thought that it's happening again, that some other fucking arsehole has picked up a weapon and set out to cause as much human misery as possible to innocent people.
We all think that now when the first alerts are raised, watching the news from various emergency departments coming in, and we all hope to hell that it's nothing, and that we can ignore it. But we have to start a story running, just in case the worst is happening again.
At least now we know the longer we wait, the better the chance that it's nothing, and we can bury the first urgent reports beneath other news. Because we know that if it was bad, more news would be there.
Because it happened so fast, so horribly fast.
We hope nothing like this happens in this wonderful country of ours ever again, but if it does, we know we won't have to wait long to know about it, and that speed is breaking our fucking hearts.
- Ron Troupe
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