Schools
'We See the Worst of Humanity'
Fox 5 Atlanta's Dale Russell tells Kennesaw State students that the rewards of being a TV reporter come at a price.
Dale Russell has spent more than two decades as a TV reporter for Fox 5 Atlanta (WAGA-TV), but he has no problem picking out the darkest moment of his career.
“The worst for me personally was after 9/11,” Russell told students Monday at a session sponsored by the university’s Society of Professional Journalists chapter. “I was in Washington, D.C. I stood outside the Pentagon as they were bringing bodies and body parts out.”
Russell said he broke down at a banquet ceremony soon after. “One of the women looked across the table and said, ‘You need help. You’ve gone through a very traumatic situation,’ ” he said. “That’s what journalists face all the time.”
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Being prepared for the worst is one of the lessons Russell offered the students.
“In a lot of ways, we’re closer to cops, or maybe emergency room doctors, because we see the worst of humanity,” he said. “All your friends over at the business school over here won’t have a clue what you’re talking about when they go off to their white-collar jobs and their offices and their nice paychecks and come in regularly, and you come in and you’ve just come out of some plane crash and you watched nine victims’ bodies pulled out.”
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That’s the job, Russell said. “We are driven by breaking crime, disaster, fire and car-wreck” stories.
The situation is the same for him even though he’s an investigative reporter.
“Investigative reporters are reporters,” Russell said. “It’s redundant. The biggest difference is that we’re given more time; we’re not on a daily deadline. But it’s the same basic skills.”
If there’s a difference, it’s that “most investigative reporters are almost self-righteous,” Russell said. “You’re outraged by wrongdoing. I’m outraged by bullies. I’m outraged by people that abuse power, and it’s one of our roles to hold them accountable.”
He gave examples of how he has put his outrage and skills to good use:
- He led an investigation about 10 years ago into a tip that customs officials at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport were targeting blacks, especially women. The story led to a congressional hearing about airport pat-down policies and an overhaul of U.S. customs operations. “Not only were we right,” Russell said, “but it was worse (nationwide). Atlanta was actually one of the better places.”
- He reported on a woman whose house was seized after her son was arrested and charged with dealing drugs there. “It’s her house, not his,” Russell said. “I kind of thought that was a little wrong.”
The woman finally was allowed to buy the house back at a reduced rate, and Fox 5 viewers sent her $17,000 to make it happen.
“When you come into someone’s life like that and make a difference and hold the powerful accountable,” Russell said, “even as long as I’ve done this, it still makes me happy.”
- He interviewed a woman in South Georgia whose husband had committed suicide. “It was because she wanted to tell about the plight of the American farmer as much as you wanted to talk about her husband,” Russell said. “She wanted people to know what’s going on economically in this country is killing people.”
Treating her as a human instead of a subject allowed him to get that story, Russell said. “To me, that’s heaven. You’re mining for gold, and that’s the nugget.”