Originally published on 2.21.23

I would like to start this piece by expressing how incredibly proud I am of each and every member of The State News for still somehow showing up for work, reporting, editing, photographing and producing the news while it was happening to you. Your dedication to informing those around you is unwavering, and we’ve noticed this over here at the Torch. Thank you for your service to your community and for all that you did to help during those four horrible hours and in the days and weeks to follow. You make me proud to be a journalist.

I wish I could express that sentiment to every news station and publication out there. But frankly, I am embarrassed by the actions of some media outlets in response to the tragedy that struck Michigan State University on Feb. 13. Simply put, the reporting tactics utilized by a select few journalists reached lows I had never expected to see in the face of the worst moment of an entire community’s lives.

MSU experienced the United States’ 68th shooting in just 43 days of the new year. As campus received the “all clear,” reporters were swooping in to interview freshly traumatized students moments after their lives changed forever. Then they drudged up the university’s old traumas when they wrote the story up for national headlines.