Pause

The world is a scary place. This scenario applies to journalists, too. Of course, there are different levels of fear.

Some people are currently afraid they'll lose their homes. Individuals are worried they'll lose their jobs. Most don't worry with a sense of deep seriousness about getting brutally murdered.

But that's exactly what happened to Anne Pressly, who was a popular anchorwoman for Arkansas television. She was 26. "Pressly was beaten around the head, face and neck," the USA Today story said.

Women, especially the individuals who choose to go into broadcast journalism, are faced with sad, rational choices from early on. Most people who seek information about the world, aka journalists, have sharp minds and have thought about things deeply, appropriately, and smartly.

When a person is in the public sphere, she's obviously more out there than ever before and more out there than most. I remember Lynn Holley, Illinois' academic programs coordinator, giving a speech to my Journalism 200 class for the '06 spring semester. She was discussing all the important aspects of journalism and especially internships, but I specifically recall her bringing up broadcast journalism and the word "stalker" and the fact that women can pretty much expect at least one type of individual or act; it was stated as fact -- like stating the grass is green or that George Carlin was funny.

And she's right.

To be clear, the suspicions leveled in the aforementioned USA Today story and other stories scattered throughout the country regarding Pressly's murder suggest she was the victim of a random attack. Who knows if television and being well known had anything to do with the horror, pain, and suffering she went through?

Public figures go through the prospects of getting stalked at a very high rate. Some of what lures crazy individuals are attractiveness and desire, and many female broadcast journalists at least in small part factor in their looks when selecting the medium of television. Television people are better looking than the rest of us. And, not that this needs to be mentioned, Pressly had blond hair and blue eyes. So, women must be able to stomach the prospect of going on even after major scares. They must stomach filing that next report under humiliating and unthinkable threats.

And though the world should change for the better, it's not. And the concern for women is not to detract from males who get stalked. Getting stalked, threatened, etc., seems to me to happen to high profile, good-looking women at a very high rate. There should definitely be some pause for each and every person, especially women, who want to go into broadcast journalism. The journalist will put herself out there for everyone to see, look up, study, contemplate, etc.

And there are insane individuals. Presumably most, like the general population, watch television. It's a guarantee that is not pleasant to think about -- but seemingly a fact nonetheless.

So, be careful. It's not overdoing it to have some type of security guard. It's not overdoing it to make sure that you're safe, to have protection, to have security systems for your home, to have people looking out for you, to have people around you. But, is that life one you are willing to live? Pressly's murder, I'm sure, made lots of people think about what is truly important.

On one hand, fear, in general, ought not to deeply affect a person's true aspirations and her mission to do good in the world and to deliver news to a mass audience of people. And she'd surely understand that the odds of something seriously bad happening are slim in general. But there are brutal realities, and if you look good and put yourself on television on a consistent basis, you will get stalked at some point.

It's best to figure out if that fact can be accepted -- and then if appropriate steps will be taken to try to not interfere with your life but to still protect you. The world's not fair.

But your life is too important.