health
February 27, 2026
‘I’ve never been so frightened’: the veteran reporter who turned his lens on the empty bedrooms of school shooting victims
The director of an Oscar-nominated documentary that goes into the bedrooms of children killed in US school shootings on why it was his most daunting challenge to date – and the hard task of encouraging people to see it
TL;DR
- Steve Hartman, a CBS correspondent since 1996, has created an Oscar-nominated documentary titled 'All the Empty Rooms'.
- The documentary photographs the bedrooms of four children killed in school shootings to humanize the victims and address the issue of gun violence.
- Photographer Lou Bopp described the experience as one of his most frightening assignments, despite extensive work in dangerous locations.
- Families of the victims, like Jada Scruggs, agreed to participate hoping the film would help their children be remembered and spur policy change.
- Director Joshua Seftel intentionally avoided the word 'gun' to prevent the film from becoming polarizing and to focus on the universal agreement that children should be safe at school.
- The film aims to break through public numbness and encourage viewers to feel the impact of school shootings, thereby motivating action.
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