'Mass death is prewritten in America': Covering mass shootings
When Polly Mosendz was a breaking news writer at Newsweek, she had a mass shooting story prewritten at all times, ready to be filled in with details. After filling in the blanks dozens of times, Ms. Mosendz left Newsweek to write about business and culture for Bloomberg.
For roughly three years, as a breaking news writer for Newsweek and The Atlantic Wire, Polly Mosendz says her "working life was dictated by Google alerts of 'shooting' and 'more than four dead.'"
Because mass shootings are so common in the United States, Mosendz and her colleagues had a prewritten mass shooting story, full of blanks that could be filled in with the number of people killed and injured in each shooting.
But in October, after the Umpqua Community College shooting in Oregon left nine dead, [the president's] speech was different. Obama was angry. And then I was angry. After seven hours of filling in morbid madlibs about the deaths of these people at the hands of a man wielding four guns, I realized what I was actually writing about.- Polly Mosendz
Today, Mosendz works for Bloomberg Digital, where she primarily covers stories about business and culture. In this essay, she describes the routine she and her colleagues followed after each mass shooting, and why she decided to move to a different reporting role.
Click the button above to hear Polly Mosendz's essay.