Previous | Next :: Mega Media : Virginia Tech Campus : Blacksburg Virginia | April 28, 2007, 12:34 am

Its true this amount of journalists in one place is gonna cause some stress. This is just a tiny section of the car park at the media center. I read there were 300 TV satellite uplink trucks......... thats a serious amount........ then on top tons of radio and printed press types, writers, researchers, photographers......... it was difficult to get a hotel room within 50 miles of Blacksburg. The presence of this kind of a press pack certainly annoys some. I have to say I always feel US journalists are much bigger on ethics and behaving well than the British or European journalists. I felt the overwhelmingly majority of press people behaved very well. Although their presence would certainly be resented by some I actually felt that most locals and students understood the enormity of this tragedy and that the presence of Media in such numbers was a recognition of this.

As a photojournalist that has witnessed many scenes of killing you need and have a pro discipline, a veneer of witness, observer not a player or principal. But you are still a human present at a tragic time, a person whose eyes well with tears at a particularly poignant moment...... you then catch yourself and reset operational mode. Sometimes you can be more moved in the privacy of your hotel room watching TV, because when you are actually there in person, you need to do your job and be the professional observer.

Cheers Jez XX