For family and work, I’ve taken the Lahore to Karachi flight 15 times in the last year.

I lost my breath when I read that PK8303 crashed.

I felt pain for the departed souls. I started praying for survivors. And I started to panic - 1

When tragedy like this strikes, our nervous system goes into panic mode and we make bad decisions.

Bad decisions like sharing unconfirmed news or private information about survivors or victims. Bad decisions like watching traumatic news in front of children. - 2

When I read the news, I took three deep breaths to regulate my panic mode, and went into my reporting mode for confirming news.

I started with trusted news sites. Nothing was up yet. I went to Twitter. Everyone was tweeting that a plane had crashed. I didn’t RT their tweets - 3

I don’t ever want to accidentally spread unverified news. It took me 15 minutes to confirm the news from credible sources. A Karachi-based politician and a journalist. I retweeted them. - 4

I share this because that’s how long it takes for someone like me with 16 years of journalism experience and a solid network of reporters to find a credible source when news is new and developing. - 5

I share this because you should also give yourself 15-20 minutes to process, verify and share tragic and powerful news.

So you don’t make bad decisions and share unverified or sensational news that revictimizes the families and survivors of tragedy.- 6

And you don’t make bad decisions that traumatizes our children like
consuming news in front of them; talking about the A320 crash in front of them. They are going through enough with covid19. Let’s protect them from the things that we can protect them from. -7

If you are parenting or caregiving a child and tragic news pops up on your phone, here are some tips. - 8

Thanks for reading this thread by a concerned journalist and parent. - 9