In the face of terrible news story involving death and destruction, I typically have a moment when I wonder, “maybe it would be best if commentators took a day or two off.” Frequently early commentary winds up being uninformed or too emotional to be of any use to anyone.

As a friend of mine loves to say, there is no award for getting it wrong first. And little benefit, either.

And maybe some reporters could afford to take this time off too. Watching Fox a few minutes ago, one of their reporters interviewed a poor kid who apparently was one of the victim’s first kisses. When the reporter hyped him as the victim’s “highschool sweetheart,” the sweetheart, not wanting to be misrepresent himself and his relationship with his friend corrected her. Right now an “eyewitness” is going through the details of what he saw

And a gun was pointed at your teacher?…

What was the carnage like? And on the radio, “How to Save a Life” plays.

Cable news exists for these things, I realize, and I hesitate to blame an individual reporter or pundit because they are doing their jobs, but it’s probably way past time everyone covering this take a deep breath. Lunchtime in prayer for these families whose lives were devastated yesterday might not hurt us all.