High-speed coverage of 4/15 shakes us

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At the end of the day, the good guys got the bad guys — this time, two brothers in crime whose heartless acts ripped apart dozens of innocent lives. It didn’t take 18 years, as with Kaczynski, and that is a tribute to law enforcement people and social media, but the compression of time and the shocking succession of events left us traumatized. We were grateful for the competence of the FBI and Boston police, but we were dazed by it all. The speed, amplified by 24/7 coverage, carried us from an ordinary Monday, April 15, to a catastrophic bombing, shootouts on the streets of Boston and a massive manhunt, all within four days.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t cover such events. We have to, and in this case, news coverage, security cameras and cellphones led to the death of one killer and the capture and arrest of another. What I’m saying is we pay a price for these front-row seats.

Copyright © 2013 Randi Kreiss. Randi can be reached at randik3@aol.com.

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