• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, Yesterday

In the days following Saturday night’s breaking news that a gunman had burst into a secure area inside the Washington Hilton to shoot government officials, I wondered: What would I have done?

Many of the journalists who were in the hotel ballroom when the shots rang out in an area outside the White House Correspondents' Dinner have been talking about it in the days following the event.

They were not adding anything to the story except how it affected them. They were scared, they said, and many told stories of diving under the banquet tables fearing the worst. 

Diving for cover when hearing apparent gunshots is a natural enough reaction. But for seasoned veterans of the news business?

In the days after the incident, they talked about their fright so often that the story of how scared they were became the stalest, most repetitive story of the whole incident.

For many of them, the mere fact that they were there became their lead story. They talked about how they felt, not what they saw.

Why? Because there is not much to see from under a banquet table.

In addition, none of these under-the-table attendees told their stories with the slightest hint of sheepishness or even embarrassment. 

I too am a journalist. So, I wondered: If I were present at the very location of this incredible story, would I have ducked under a table or would I have run toward the story?

Laugh at this if you want, but I keep telling myself I would have run toward the area where the shots rang out so I could see as much of what was happening as I could. 

It is what journalists do instinctually. Or at the very least, they think about doing it, and sometimes regret not doing it afterward when the smoke clears.

Big caveat: As a journalist on the TV beat, the most running I have ever done in pursuit of a story has been running to Upfronts to get a decent seat. 

Another big caveat: I have never covered a shooting in progress. Still, foolish and irrational as it sounds, I might have said something idiotic to myself such as: Wow, a shooting! I wonder how I can get a look at this, preferably without getting shot?

Plenty of journalists have covered and witnessed shootings, in particular correspondents reporting on wars.

I do not know this for sure, but I’m guessing that war correspondents may have been in short supply at the White House Correspondents' Dinner on Saturday.

Instead, the journalist attendees seemed to be, for the most part, in-studio types of people -- anchors, cable news talk show hosts and high-ranking producers and executives.

A number of them previously had careers in the field, but at this point in their lives, maybe they just weren’t feeling it anymore.

One veteran who actually witnessed the shooting was CNN’s Wolf Blitzer -- not because he ran to see it, but because he just happened to be in the same area where the shooter had tried to rush past security personnel.

Blitzer, 78, may have been in that particular location because the subject of a nearby men’s room came up in his live, first-person account, which I saw on CNN on Saturday.

He delivered a great eyewitness report -- a precise, detailed description of what he saw.

He reported that the shooting he witnessed was frightening. But when he was delivering the story, he did so without evident emotion. 

Although he was in position to cover the story only by sheer happenstance, Blitzer made the most of this opportunity.

The journalists in the ballroom had the same opportunity to get to the story and report it.

It is too bad that, in a ballroom full of the journalism elite, few of them did.