By Stella Hou
Student Journalist, HKBU
2014/11/4
415 words
The winner of 2013 Pulitzer Prize Kurtis Lee said although journalists want to ask questions and get answers but they also want to be human on class sharing at Hong Kong Baptist University on Monday.
Lee won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news coverage of the Aurora Theater shooting when he worked at The Denver Post in 2012.
In class sharing, he shared his experience and feelings as a reporter when delivering the Aurora Theater shooting and the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting.
The movie stared at 12:05 a.m., it’s a Friday night that young people went there to see a movie. When the shooter came in people thought it’s a part of movie until the shooter shot in the air, it was 12:39 a.m.
Lee got a call around 1 a.m. in the morning from the editor, after which he jumped from bed and drove to Aurora Theater.
It was 1:20 a.m. Lee got there and a press conference was about to start outside the theater. Sitting down on the ground, he started to tweet what he saw on Tweeter.
“I remember they said there was 13 people died. Someone asked, where are they? Have they been rushed to hospital or medical center? They said no, they were killed on the scene, they are died,” Lee still remembered.
After the press conference, Lee came to a nearby high school where people were trying to find their love-one, many of them left their phones in the theater. “It’s very emotional to see people rush to find and see their love-one, I stay there for 12 hours just take notes,” Lee said.
At the high school, he met Tom, who lost his son Alex that night. Alex turned 27 on 22th, July. He died on his birthday.
After the shooting case, people are discussing about whether the Aurora Theater should close or not. Some people don’t think they will go to see a movie there while other people said if they close the theater the shooter wins.
Finally, the Aurora Theater opened six month after the shooting.
When asked about how he controls his emotion when he is covering this kind of event, Lee said, “It’s very emotional, the human side just comes out. But this is your job you need to do. This is public service, you should separate yourself.”
“As a journalist, you just know how to react. It’s professional, you know the right time, when to step back and when to ask questions,” Lee said.
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