Late Sunday, just hours after a gunman stood on a rooftop in Highland Park, Illinois, and shot into a crowd enjoying a Fourth of July parade, “NBC Nightly News” anchor Lester Holt knew he had to be in the Chicago suburb for Monday night’s newscast.
Whenever a major news event happens — a weather disaster, a war or, much too frequently these days, a mass shooting — anchors often rush to the scene to host the evening news.
Why? Why is it so important for someone such as Holt to rush to somewhere such as Highland Park or Uvalde, Texas; or Lviv, Ukraine; when they can anchor the news from New York or Washington?
So I asked Holt that very question on Tuesday, just a couple of hours before he went on the air from Highland Park.
He told me in an email, “I will always be a reporter first, and an anchor second. My natural urges are to always be at the big story. Being here sends a clear message that it’s a story of high importance and one that we are committing to in a big way.”
It’s true. Holt — and other network news anchors such as ABC News’ David Muir and CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell — aren’t just anchors. They’re journalists. They’re not just introducing reporters from the scene. They are there to do the reporting — talking to witnesses, questioning authorities and interviewing experts.
And, as Holt mentioned, it does signal to the audience: This story is important, this story matters, me being here matters.
On Tuesday, Adriana Diaz, in for O’Donnell, co-anchored the “CBS Evening News” from Highland Park and was joined by reporter Kris Van Cleave. Diaz not only anchored, but reported — interviewing some of the witnesses. Linsey Davis, filling in for Muir, anchored ABC’s “World News Tonight” from New York, but ABC had reporters, including Alex Perez and Stephanie Ramos, in Highland Park.
Holt was joined by Tom Llamas in Highland Park. Holt interviewed several witnesses who were at the parade, and talked extensively about several of the victims. That included gut-wrenching interviews with family members of one of the victims.
Holt then closed Tuesday night’s newscast with these powerful remarks:
“Finally tonight, the words of perspective I often close the broadcast with on tragic nights like this, I’m sorry to say fail me this time. Because there have been too many nights like this. Too many nights when I’ve stood at crime scenes like this, thinking not just about the tragedy before my eyes, but of the next one. And the one after that. And the one after that. Frustrated that words alone cannot stop it. As we look out over the latest city turned crime scene, we see the things left behind and know for those who ran from danger, it’s not just a chair or a wagon, but a sense of safety, a sense of innocence left behind as well.”
Frightening details
We’re learning more about the shooting that has now killed seven people and sent dozens more to the hospital. Authorities on Monday said the suspect fired more than 70 rounds into the crowd with a gun that he had purchased legally. In addition, the 21-year-old man had planned the attack for weeks. He dressed like a woman to help cover his facial tattoos and to help him escape following the shooting.
We also learned Tuesday that the authorities had seized knives from the suspect in 2019 after he threatened to “kill everyone.”
‘I saw the horror unfold’
Chicago Sun-Times columnist Lynn Sweet was at the July Fourth parade in Highland Park and wrote a column that was published Monday.
Sweet wrote, “It was all so delightfully normal. Then it wasn’t.”
One moment, there were children in strollers and spectators in folding chairs. Then, after the shooting started, the strollers and folding chairs were left behind empty, surrounded by other items that were dropped as spectators scrambled to safety — items such as backpacks and towels and water bottles.
Sweet then wrote in “gruesome detail” some of what she saw: “I saw my first body of the day. A blanket covered the top of the man. His shorts were soaked with blood. His legs were bloody and blood was still flowing out of him. Two more bodies were on the steps leading into Port Clinton. Thankfully, someone threw blankets over their torsos.”
Mass shootings used to be nightmares that happened in other places. But, as Sweet wrote, “I’ve been reporting on gun massacres for years — since the 1999 Columbine school shootings. But always from a distance. I wasn’t there when the killing happened. Until this July Fourth. When I was.”
More coverage from Highland Park
