Alison Bailey Parker grew up in Virginia. She interned at WDBJ in 2012, worked as a general assignment news reporter at ABC from December of that year until May 2014, and then was hired by WDBJ in 2014 as a reporter for Mornin'.
Alison Parker and photojournalist Adam Ward were fatally shot on August 26, 2015 while conducting a live television interview near Smith Mountain Lake in Moneta. The news team was interviewing Vicki Gardner, executive director of the local chamber of commerce, when all three were attacked by a gunman. Parker, age 24, and Ward, age 27, died at the scene while Gardner survived. The gunman was 41-year-old Vester Lee Flanagan II, also known by the professional pseudonym of Bryce Williams, a former reporter at WDBJ. According to The New York Times he had been fired from the television station two years before in 2013. After the murder he ran away. Five hours later he was found in his car. He shot himself during a car chase with police officers and died later at a hospital. According to Elite daily Journalists who travel to far off destinations to cover war and upheaval know that they are potential targets, but reporters who work for hometown television stations and newspapers are different. All people rely on these media outlets for information about what is happening in their communities, and often they wake up and end the day with the paper or local news programs. These kind of reporters do not work dangerous work. And Alison Parker‘s death was a shock for everyone.
According to The New York Times „Mr. Gardner said that he had spoken with Ms. Parker’s father, Andy, who has vowed to fight for stricter gun controls. Mr. Gardner offered a different view, saying that Mr. Flanagan had been fixated on harming his former colleagues.“Whether it was a gun or machete or ax, it doesn’t make any difference,” Mr. Gardner said. “He was determined and he was crazy. He was going to kill her, and he waited until he was on air to do it that way. Place the blame on the individual and not with the tool he used.” His motives are not clear but the killer repeated his claims of racial discrimination by WDBJ on his online acounts, specifically naming Parker and Ward. Flanagan claimed that while working with Parker during her internship at WDBJ, she had made a coded racist remark regarding a friend who lived on Cotton Hill Road.
Alison Parker and photojournalist Adam Ward were fatally shot on August 26, 2015 while conducting a live television interview near Smith Mountain Lake in Moneta. The news team was interviewing Vicki Gardner, executive director of the local chamber of commerce, when all three were attacked by a gunman. Parker, age 24, and Ward, age 27, died at the scene while Gardner survived. The gunman was 41-year-old Vester Lee Flanagan II, also known by the professional pseudonym of Bryce Williams, a former reporter at WDBJ. According to The New York Times he had been fired from the television station two years before in 2013. After the murder he ran away. Five hours later he was found in his car. He shot himself during a car chase with police officers and died later at a hospital. According to Elite daily Journalists who travel to far off destinations to cover war and upheaval know that they are potential targets, but reporters who work for hometown television stations and newspapers are different. All people rely on these media outlets for information about what is happening in their communities, and often they wake up and end the day with the paper or local news programs. These kind of reporters do not work dangerous work. And Alison Parker‘s death was a shock for everyone.
According to The New York Times „Mr. Gardner said that he had spoken with Ms. Parker’s father, Andy, who has vowed to fight for stricter gun controls. Mr. Gardner offered a different view, saying that Mr. Flanagan had been fixated on harming his former colleagues.“Whether it was a gun or machete or ax, it doesn’t make any difference,” Mr. Gardner said. “He was determined and he was crazy. He was going to kill her, and he waited until he was on air to do it that way. Place the blame on the individual and not with the tool he used.” His motives are not clear but the killer repeated his claims of racial discrimination by WDBJ on his online acounts, specifically naming Parker and Ward. Flanagan claimed that while working with Parker during her internship at WDBJ, she had made a coded racist remark regarding a friend who lived on Cotton Hill Road.