Archer W.: You reported from inside the Capitol on January 6th. Were you scared?
Rhonda Colvin: I wasn’t scared because I understood the Capitol. I knew where to go if things went wrong, but I was—I did become concerned. We were told by two officers to find a room that had a lock and we tested out a few rooms in the basement area of where we were in the Capitol complex. And a lot of rooms didn’t have locks, but we found one that had a lock. And it’s a room that is probably a utility closet or an electrical—it has a lot of electrical grids inside. And Lindsey Sitz—my camerawoman and colleague, great colleague—Lindsey, along with two other members of the media who decided to barricade with us, they started gathering up things to put in the inside area of the door so that if someone pushed their way through, it would stop them momentarily. So while they were doing that, I was on the phone with our live show. I found a corner of that room so I could do a hit, essentially, with the live show while they’re barricading us. And I really am grateful to them because they were the quick thinkers, like, we “need to protect ourselves”. And I’m in the corner, like, “I’ve gotta talk to the people who are watching this!”
So yeah, I—one of my producer friends said, what happened to you is something that happened to war correspondents where you start thinking about the story and what you’re seeing because you realize the magnitude of it. And I think after I talked to the police officers and they said barricade, and we heard shots fired over their radios, I knew then that I needed to go into reporter mode because this was not a normal day.
So, yeah, I think that’s what happened to me. It’s not—I don’t think you’re supposed to do it long term. You need to do your job, but you also need to remember you can’t do your job if you’re not safe, so, yeah.
Archer W.: Thank you, Rhonda. That was Rhonda Colvin from the newsroom of The Washington Post.
