As journalists, a major part of our job is running toward disaster so we can chronicle it for the community.

Working for The Vicksburg Post, we may not be in the line of fire like journalists covering war zones or the like, but we also never know what is going to come across the police scanner sitting in the office.

When the scanner goes off, the whole newsroom pauses for a moment to see if it is something that requires our immediate attention — typically bad car accidents, fires and shootings.

There have been times when deadline is looming and we are working on finishing the paper and suddenly the scanner forces a complete change to the plan. Then, there was the night when the front page changed three times in the hour before deadline as news broke.

You stand up, grab a notebook and camera and head to the scene not sure if you will be there five minutes or a couple hours as the event unfolds.

Sometimes these trips are false alarms, such as a car accident that was called in as a rollover with entrapment only to find nothing more than a fender bender when you arrive at the scene, thank goodness. Other times, you think you are going to a minor dispute and end up seeing and covering a distraught mother being told her son has been killed.

This is our role as journalists. When the coroner arrives on a scene where you are covering an event and people become overcome with emotions, it is one of the hardest parts of the job to simply stand to the side and chronicle it. But it is the job.

As journalists, we are typically in the thick of what is happening as we try to get the information and photos to tell the story of what happened to our readers.

With the advent of social media, how breaking news occurs has changed so much. Where once the story came out in print to tell people what happened, or eventually transitioned to an online story, our first step is now typically to post a photo to Facebook alerting our readers that an event has occurred and we are on the scene.

Facebook also offers more tools now including live video, which we were able to use very effectively during last year’s water outage to broadcast the press conferences and Tuesday night to show the firefighters battling a blaze on Cherry Street.

The fire happened after typical business hours, but we still had people in the newsroom finishing things up and they heard it unfolding on the scanner.

A message was sent out and I went to the scene to cover the fire. With pictures, interviews that became a story and live video, the Vicksburg community was able to hear and see what was happening.

That is our role as journalists, especially at a community paper like The Post. We are your eyes and ears and we will continue to work to bring the news to you.

  Brandon O’Connor is a staff writer for The Vicksburg Post. You may reach him at brandon.oconnor@vicksburgpost.com.