For more than 30 years I’ve been a small-town news guy. It’s the only career I’ve ever known or desired.

News mongering has its shortcomings, sure. Every career does. But overall the trade has been pretty good to me. It puts food on the table and gives me a sense of purpose and satisfaction.

But today it gives me another sense — something more like a wary sense of self-preservation.

News people everywhere are grieving today for two of our own. We’re appalled and disturbed by the on-air murders of a TV news reporter and her cameraman in Virginia.

Around 6:45 a.m. Wednesday, while conducting a live interview in the inconsequential lakeside resort town of Moneta, Va., WDBJ-7 reporter Alison Parker and photographer Adam Ward were shot dead by a fired former co-worker.

The individual Parker was interviewing, the head of the Smith Mountain Lake Chamber of Commerce survived the shooting and was taken to a hospital.

Ward, the photographer, managed to capture the sound of at least eight gunshots and an image of the assailant with his video camera even as he fell dying.

The attack was unprovoked and unexpected. The gunshots came, literally, out of the blue.

This wasn’t racial strife in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson; it wasn’t the streets of Baltimore.

It was not an ISIS or al-Qaida cell erupting in militant jihad.

Far from it. Moneta is an idyllic lakeside resort town in a remote rural setting. The interview was about tourism.

We learned later that the shooter was a disgruntled former co-worker. He turned his gun on himself, committing suicide as Virginia state troopers closed in on his location.

The case has me thinking about what makes it so disturbing. I’ve come to several conclusions.

First, there was nothing unusual about the case. The circumstances are entirely routine. Up until the burst of gunfire, the story could have been about any journalist in any community in small-town America.

These murders could have happened anywhere. They could have happened here.

Second, the WDBJ-7 station’s employees were close-knit. General Manager Jeff Marks commented how they were like family. Today I’m feeling especially sympathetic to that. The Butler Eagle staff is my second family. Social media keeps me in touch with journalists throughout the region, and we celebrate each other’s promotions personal accomplishments, and we commiserate with each other’s trials and setbacks.

There’s always been a family connection among journalists, but it has evolved over my 31 years just like every other aspect of the profession. Once upon a time there were official and unofficial “press clubs” where we’d get together, vent our frustrations as professional communicators and consume too much alcohol. But the press clubs have gone the way of the dinosaur and the manual typewriter. Today, thanks to social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook, we vent daily online and plan only sporadic gatherings — sort of like a flash mob for news folks. It’s more efficient than the old way. It’s healthier too with less drinking involved.

Finally, our digital existence changes everything. The story of the live murders played out worldwide in a matter of a few hours. By contrast, news of the U.S. Revolutionary War took months to reach Europe and other parts of the world.

This suddenness and pervasiveness of the news changes our view, too. Some say the instant, universal availability distorts our perspective; others say it sharpens it.

The Old Testament prophet Isaiah wrote: “All you people of the world, ... when a banner is raised on the mountains, you will see it, and when a trumpet sounds, you will hear it.”

This morning I heard presidential candidate Chris Chrystie say we’re all tired of the violence. I can’t argue. But prime time television remains saturated in violence.

“Medical and social science have proven conclusively that children are adversely affected by exposure to it,” saysthe Parents Television Council, “yet millions of parents think nothing of letting their children watch C.S.I. or other, equally violent programs.”

That disturbs me too.

Tom Harrison writes editorials for the Butler Eagle.