Collegiate Times

Media floods to campus to cover the Dec. 8 shootings. Tech again found itself in an unfortunate spotlight.

The world was watching Virginia Tech again today — and once again it saw a tragedy.

Since Tech student Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 and himself in the April 16, 2007, campus shootings, Tech has been the scene of several scares, false alarms and similarly tragic — if smaller — incidents.

Some students expressed frustration to the way national media outlets handled the story, while other students expressed pleasure with how the Tech community handled the situation.

SGA president J Corbin DiMeglio said he was “amazed by how something so tragic was handled so smoothly.”

“We became a family, looking after each other,” DiMeglio said. “I was amazed by how difficult of a situation it was but by how smoothly it went.”

“It’s gonna be asked about,” he said. “But like Nicki Giovanni said, We will prevail. And we did prevail.”

DiMeglio said he had been declining to do interviews with national media outlets, though he said many had contacted him for interviews. 

“Part of Hokies United is that the recognized voice is (Larry) Hincker’s office, and we don’t want to provide hearsay,” DiMeglio said.

Student Chris Luceri said he felt the incident “united all of us.”

“But, at the end of the day, I was just thankful it wasn’t another mass school shooting,” Luceri said. “I’m sorry for the officer’s family though.”

Luceri said he and his roommate spent the day watching CNN. 

“It pissed us off initially,” he said. “We knew if it wasn’t Tech, they wouldn’t have sensationalized it as much.”

People on Twitter expressed their views about national media coverage of the events at Tech by using the hashtag #notagain, referencing the April 16, 2007, shootings.

“#notagain praying tonight for all students, families, and faculty linked to Virginia Tech <3” wrote user @TheTallEmily.

Kevin Ryland, a freshman electrical engineering major, said he and his friends in Lee Hall were also watching CNN all day.

“They (CNN) dwelled a lot on what happened in 2007,” Ryland said. “Sometimes I couldn’t understand if what they were talking about happened then or now.

“They were using it as a way to capitalize on past events. I think the news should be more practical instead of sensational. The local news was better.”

Derek Thackston, a senior biology major, said he thought Tech reacted well to the events.

“The alert system was really fast,” he said. “People still give the school crap for not getting the alerts out fast enough, but they do all they can do to communicate.”

A version of this article appeared in the Dec 9 issue of the Collegiate Times.