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VICE News‏Verified account @VICENews 6 Jul 2021

“It’s my office, the building I love most in the fucking world. I used to call the Capitol my girlfriend. I’ve devoted 15 years of my goddamn life to that building,” said freelance reporter Matt Laslo, choking up. “Now? I don’t want to be there.”

https://archive.ph/oryV9 https:// www. vice. com/en/article/4avqqn/reporters-survived-capitol-riot-struggling

‘So, So Angry’: Reporters Who Survived the Capitol Riot Are Still Struggling

The reporters who survived the insurrection are still covering Congress. But things don’t feel normal.

By Cameron Joseph July 6, 2021, 2:47pm

Some reporters who were there won’t go back into the building. A number have sought therapy to deal with the trauma. One longtime Capitol Hill reporter opted for early retirement shortly after living through the riot. Many still aren’t sleeping well.

“I’m still not sleeping like I used to, even to this day,” said PBS NewsHour correspondent Lisa Desjardins. “I became kind of an insomniac.” 

Even the journalists who don’t feel personally impacted say they’re still dealing with covering a Congress where members and staff are coping with their own emotional fallout.

“It definitely could happen again. It’s something that’s on my radar. We’ve become very complacent in thinking the U.S. is different,” said Bloomberg News reporter Erik Wasson. “It’s eerily back to normal. But sometimes It feels like one of those horror movies, like the end of ‘Jaws.’ Everything feels copacetic on the beach. But you wonder if there’s anything out there.”

But in the weeks after, Wasson said he experienced symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder—depression, short-tempered irritability that led to fights with his wife over nothing. This went on for nearly a month.

“I do remember just feeling unsafe in my house,” said Wasson. “It occurred to me, like, I wonder if some protesters could be tracking me or could show up at my house. There was definitely a moment of fear, and just trying to assess whether there was actually any danger to me and my family.”

“He was more panicked than I was. I couldn’t see the footage outside the building,” she said. “I actually said, ‘There are men with guns who will shoot anyone who tries to come inside. I’m in the world’s safest building.’”

He watched out the windows as insurrectionists bear-sprayed police, then overran the building. He saw senators being rushed by police back into the Senate chamber. He retreated upstairs at the sound of “gladiator screams” in the building.