Sadly, because I work in the news business, nothing tends to shock me, because I’ve likely heard a variation of all horror stories before. But the recent news of the gruesome and random beheading of a 22-year-old man on a bus has given me unshakeable nightmares.

The victim, Tim McLean, was the quintessential twentysomething: he worked at a fun summer job and was travelling the cheaper way, communicating by text message and enjoying the sounds of life through an iPod and the scenes of life through Facebook.

He was one of us.

While every aspect of this story has shocked and terrified me, the one detail that has bothered me the most has been the role played by the media. When I found out that Tim’s family learned of the news when a reporter knocked at the door, my stomach turned with shame.

Tim might have been one of us, but I know that I am one of “them.”

I remember my first story at a major paper. Two teens died in a boating accident, and as the newbie, I was asked to do the grim task of locating the families and speaking to them.

Luckily for me, the families of the boating victims turned out to be wonderful, and even grateful for the opportunity to speak about their children, but since then, I’ve knocked on the doors of many grieving families, only to have them slammed in my face.

I never blamed them.

I remember one family that I now wish would have slammed the door in my face. An elderly woman was left homeless after her grown son allegedly burned their house down after the two of them got into a dispute. The insurance company taking care of the claim refused to give her money, because her son was living in the home when it burned down.

I was pretty proud of myself when I tracked the woman down and got her to talk to me through her despair. But as the adrenaline began to wane, I wondered if my story was really worth making this nice old lady, who had already been through so much, shed a few more tears.

Sometimes, I’m so focused on making it in this profession that I forget that my job is to reflect human nature, not make a mockery of it.

As a person in her twenties, it’s no wonder that Tim McLean’s tragic fate has made me shudder as much as it has. This could have happened anywhere and to anyone.

But as a reporter, this story has made me question what life is all about.

There will always be a debate about how far a reporter should go to get a story, and I guess each journalist has to figure out his or her personal boundaries.

It’s tough to react like a human being when your day is saturated with bad news from around the world. As I said, nothing tends to shock me anymore, and that makes me really sad.

I remember discussing this issue with a friend of mine who is a police officer. We observed that it’s ironic that the professions that are supposed to reinforce a human being’s belief in justice, peace and freedom do so by dehumanizing the people who work in them.

When I reacted the way I did to Tim McLean’s story, I felt a wave of relief, because it meant I had a little bit of innocence left in me that allowed me to feel the shock.

All I can do now is hope that the little bit of humanity I have left will still be there the next time I have to knock on a stranger’s door.