Virginia Student Journalists Caught Up in Story

BLACKSBURG, Va., April 17, 2007 — -- For Amie Steele, a student at Virginia Tech, the last 26 hours have been a mixture of professional priorities and personal grieving.

The junior, who has been the editor in chief of Virginia Tech's student newspaper, the Collegiate Times, circulation 55,000, for only three weeks, responded to a call Monday, just after 9 a.m. from one of her sports reporters. The reporter was calling from the athletic office where there were rumors circulating about a shooting on campus.

It was Steele's first notification of the tragic events that took place Monday morning at Virginia Tech. She immediately contacted the paper's staff, picked up her personal camera and headed to campus.

"It's been difficult," she said.

With the campus under evacuation, Steele moved the newspaper to an off-campus location for the afternoon. The temporary newsroom filled with student reporters, adding information as they learned it on the the Collegiate Times Web site.

As the reporters worked through the night, Steele said the their time was equally split between reporting news and knocking down false information. The paper's "main priority right now is to quash rumors."

Considering the nature of the story, she says, and the number of students involved "rumors are spreading everywhere. We're trying to figure out what is fact and what is fiction to give students up-to-date information so they know what is true and what is false."

Editing and production of a typical edition of the Collegiate Times is normally completed at midnight, with the paper distributed on campus by 7:30 a.m. But this historic edition, twice the size of a typical paper, was "put to bed" at 6 a.m. -- and was in the hands of readers just three hours later.

The Collegiate Times has been among the first news organizations with information. The newspaper published a partial list of victims this morning. Steele says those names were confirmed by family members, academic e-mails or friends of the newspaper staff who were informed by victims' families.

An independent, student-run publication supported by local advertisers, the Collegiate Times receives no funding from the university. Steele describes the paper's editorial adviser as "hands off" and someone who allows the paper's staff "to make all the decisions."

Still, as a member of Virginia Tech's student community, Steele admits, "It's been tough."

"They are our friends. They are our peers. We are taking this as serious news and grieving for our friends."

"As of right now, we're just trying to sort through."