One of the worst jobs as a journalist is standing round waiting for someone to tell you what you need to know.
When those people can't tell you anything, it makes the waiting that much harder, more frustrating.
This usually happens when there is a tragedy or a disaster. Officials can't – or won't – tell you anything and the friends and families often refuse to say anything because they don't know, are too upset, or are resentful, even abusive. You can't really blame them.
Journalists are seen as the bottom-feeders, the vultures who circle, waiting to come in for the kill to get something sensational for their next story.
At least that's the perception.
Fortunately it's not usually the case with Kiwi journalists, who only want to cover the news and tell readers what's happening.
The reporters covering the Pike River mine disaster this week will have been through all those situations, and many more, and will remember the experience for the rest of their lives because of the effect it has had on them.
Not even the hardest, most jaundiced journo can cover an event like this and not be affected; nothing like the friends and families of the mine victims, but it still touches their lives.
One of my bosses in Wellington, a gruff, hardened, old-style journo, was back filing this week from the Coast, where he grew up and has friends connected with the mines. The emotion pouring from his laptop each day showed a side of him I would never have imagined.
We have had an Express reporter in Wellington all week covering the High Court trial of the businessman charged with causing the death of a fellow Blenheim man last year.
Covering court cases like this can take a toll, too, picking out the aspects of the trial that will be of most interest to the readers but still being balanced, giving equal weight to both sides of the case.
Sometimes, though, reporters get to write good news stories, as we did this week with the survival of a truck driver after his logging rig rolled 80 metres down a steep bank in Port Underwood.
He spoke to a reporter in Wellington Hospital and we also got the other side of the story about the volunteer firefighters who scrambled down the hillside to help rescue him.
It has been a tragic week of news, but there have also been some brighter moments.
Thank God for those.
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