News notes

When news of 32 people dying in a tragic shooting rampage on a college campus hit our newsroom, our reactions were much like anyone else’s.

Anger, sorrow, pity, frustration, fear – all the feelings that pour over you when you think about the senseless loss of life.

Then we start thinking about how we will report the news, how we’ll help our readers make sense of a nightmare that occurred 600 miles away, but still is close to our collective consciousness.

Many of us have children away at college. Or we at least have friends or relatives or neighbors with children on a college campus somewhere.

We may not know the victims or their families, but we can relate. We can imagine the horror of turning on the television and seeing pictures of violence on a usually quiet college campus, and realizing your children are students there.

Personally, I have two children still attending college, both hundreds of miles away. My mind went to them within seconds after the story broke.

There is no mention of the Virginia Tech shooting in today’s Evening News. The story broke just after our deadline. In tomorrow’s paper, we’ll update the news and also talk to local parents about their own children who are away at college.

We also started a discussion on the Eyes and Ears forums, to give area residents a chance to voice their views.

It’s not a local story. But it’s a story that hits close to home.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 16th, 2007 at 4:10 pm and is filed under National media issues, The Evening News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.