 "Photo: Steve Helber/The Associated Press")
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Blacksburg, Va. - Some 350 registered media outlets have swarmed the Virginia Tech campus and the town of Blacksburg, according to Chris Clough, director of marketing and strategic communications.
Some Virginia Tech students have expressed their sentiment toward the media through hand-made signs reading "Virginia Tech stay strong, media stay away."
Others are less resistant to the media's presence.
Quin Costin, a second-year chemical engineering student at Virginia Tech, felt the media presence serves as a positive reminder.
"Some of us are particularly uncomfortable with the way the media pounced on it last year and treated it as nothing more than a story," he said. "However, I think that the media presence this year and the media presence here today is an important reminder to the world that the shootings here did happen. People need to remember what happened at Virginia Tech in order for some good to come of this. It's important when a tragedy occurs … something good does come out of it."
Costin said the media's presence on campus does not lessen the commemoration.
"This day reopens old wounds," Costin said. "Just today, I was walking across Drillfield with a friend and we said to each other 'this is unreal.' That's the only word that can describe the situation. It's absolutely unreal that it happened a year ago."
Maya Renfro, a second-year art student, compared the continual media presence to "picking at a scab."
"Eventually, you have a scar and you're just gouging at it," she said. "It's counterproductive. You can't go around reflecting the whole time."
Renfro said she felt the media tends to over-dramatize the situation.
"If there's 100people that say it's OK and one person that says 'It's terrible and I can't go on,' they're going to capitalize on that," Renfro said.
Blacksburg residents also felt the stress of the media.
"I thought it was pretty bad after the incident happened, but it was such a huge event that people had to do their jobs," said Dorothy Egger, owner of Mad Dog, a fashion store in Blacksburg. "Even though it is sometimes a little calloused and unfeeling, it may be part of the territory. But I don't think I really felt it as much as the students on campus did, I'm talking from a different perspective."
Peter Garbera, artist and owner of Art Pannonia in Blacksburg, said he thinks it is fine for the media to come to his town.
Sarah Bloom and Maria Chung, both reporters for WOAY-TV, a station that covers southern West Virginia and part of Virginia, came to Virginia Tech to cover the one-year commemoration of the shootings.
"A lot of people in our viewing area have children that go to Virginia Tech, are avid followers of Virginia Tech so it directly impacts them," Bloom said. "Personally, I went to school just last year, up the road at Washington and Lee. We were neighbors with Virginia Tech so it was nice for me to come out here and see this."
While students have been hesitant to speak with members of the media, most have been cooperative, Chung said.
"No one has been angry," Chung said. "You can tell they're not in the right mindset."
Even though the shootings happened a year ago, reporters still feel there is still a story to tell.
"There will always, always, always be a story here," Bloom said. "It's not easy being a journalist. Sometimes, you feel like you're exploiting someone but then you realize there are hundreds of people at home who want to know how these kids are doing and what they can do to help. We're their resource for information."
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