In memoriam: Joe Loy

I've been in a bit of a funk most of the day. It was just a brief on page three of the local paper that put me there. It said Joe Loy, assignment editor at WHNS-TV in Greenville, was killed while videotaping a traffic accident on I-85 in the Upstate.

Silly and stupid as it is, of course, you expect your fellow journalists to die, maybe, in a place like Iraq. Not on the side of a highway, surrounded by police cars.

I got to know Joe when I was news editor for AP. I was a former TV assignment editor, so I understood the job and the hassles. Yet Joe was always friendly and helpful when we called for assistance. He knew news. He was one of those people who made you proud to call yourself a journalist.

Police say it was one of those freak but preventable accidents -- some guy in a truck weaves in and out of traffic, cuts off a van and the van careens into Loy and the news van he was standing next to. Police say they're looking for a maroon truck.

Joe had a lot of friends. Judge for yourself from the messages of condolences on the station's Web site. Probably wouldn't even have remembered me. But to me, Joe was a great friend and a great professional. My deepest condolences and thoughts to his family and his co-workers, those at Fox Carolina -- but in many ways those of us who are journalists throughout South Carolina.

(The graphic is from the station's Web site. I trust WHNS will not object to my using it. You should see Joe as well as hear about him.)