Photographer Alan Chin From Blacksburg

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I want to make some comments on the campus and the students:

Considering that I'm a Chinese-American photographer and that the murderer was Korean, I was not hassled or treated any differently than any other photographer. Quite the contrary. In fact...at the bar, a student bought me a drink because he was worried that racists might attack me, and wanted to reassure me. And look at who was killed -- a true cross section of immigrant America, equal opportunity in death -- and all of that made me think, wow, America, a rural university in Virginia, actually, really is a diverse place, all these young people and faculty thrown together in what, 40 years ago, was the segregated heart of the former Confederacy...

...And yet, you could tell, Virginia Tech IS a southern university...obviously a big fraternity/sorority scene, big ROTC / military cadet program, big sports teams with the school colors and the nickname "Hokies"...and of course, most of the students are nice, white, middle class kids from the South... There was a moment during the evening candlelit vigil, thousands of students in the field, and they began singing "Amazing Grace" -- and you realized, only southerners (black or white) can sing like that spontaneously, still have it in their traditions -- not to make a joke about it, but had this happened in Iowa or Vermont, they would not have sang like that, with natural, shared, beautiful emotion.

Which does bring us to, and this is not in any way to excuse or justify the killer's actions, but what it does bring us to is the situation of a young Asian-American man in such a place, such a culture that is on the one hand, modern and open and cosmopolitan, and, yet, still insular and proud and traditional...

..And of course, there are plenty of other Asian students at Virginia Tech. They don't go out and kill anybody, of course. Yet when you listen to Cho's words on the tape, the anger and rage against privilege and wealth, you do realize that this remains a country that has yet to figure out just how we're going to deal with our contradictions...

Many Asian Americans, young men in particular, have been stereotyped as computer geeks, nerds with poor social skills, over educated but under masculine, etc. A sexual tension exists, also, with a popular sexual culture that fetishizes Asian women ("yellow fever," "geisha," etc.) and, at the same time, emasculates Asian men. Unfortunately, Cho seems to have fit some of these stereotypes...

These are just some of my observations, if not fully thought out...

Alan

(All images courtesy of Alan Chin.  Blacksburg, Virginia.  April 17 & 18, 2007.  Posted by permission.  Alan's previous work at BAGnewsNotes is available here.)

Comments

[Kitt]

I don't remember where I saw a page of photos of all who were killed, but what struck me was the 'diversity' of those killed.

[MichaelDG]

Looking at these photos I am struck by the heartache and sorrow that the shootings caused. All these people stopped in their tracks, traumatized, mourning together. It is a story that is played out 30,000 times a year as family and friends grieve for America's victims of gun violence. Yet our "can do" nation is paralyzed, unable to even attempt to try to change the source of our annual carnage- guns available to anyone, anytime, anywhere. Almost everyone in America knows someone who has been killed by a firearm (19,000 suicides, 11,000 homicides, 950 accidents/year). One would think that with so many victims each year touching so many loved ones that there would be a groundswell of demand for change. Why does gun control continue to be a virtual "third rail" for any politician who would try to address the problem?

[japandrew]

The New York Times has a page of short profiles of those killed. The News Hour also did brief profiles. The comments from friends like "she always had a smile for you" are really painful to listen to, as are the facts of their backgrounds and aspirations -- one was a senior studying international relations, another a graduate student in hydrology... The sense of loss for all the contributions they were eager to make -- but now won't.

I wish the Times or some other media outlet would set aside half a page each day for similar portraits of any of the world's many daily victims of pointless violence. The taxi driver in Kabul with three small daughters, the x-ray technician in Baghdad... If we could pull a larger percentage of these victims out of anonymity and let their humanity be known, I have to think that things would start to change.

[janinsanfran]

Alan -- thanks so much for your observations. When I heard of the shooting, I thought something like "wow, those will all be white kids, Southerners." Then I saw the pictures and realized they don't look that different in diversity from the young people my partner teaches in San Francisco. That diversity IS this country now -- it is just that many of us don't know it. This trajedy, including as the aftermath is captured in your pictures, will teach more of us, perhaps even without our being conscious of it.

The overwhelming sense I get from your pictures is that they've been stopped -- run hard into a wall they didn't know was there. Once they get themselves going again, I wonder in what direction they'll move. I have a friend who was an elementary school student in a place where a shooter broke into the school and killed a teacher and the principal. This friend won't go anywhere without a gun -- a crazy response from my point of view, but it is his.

[Darryl Pearce]

...thanks for bearing witness.

[weisseharre]

i(p)sedixi(t)

[MonsieurGonzo]

who won the Game ?

or, was it a rock concert ?

[NoContest]

Alan - Is it intrusive, or socially appropriate to run up on a grieving girl in a park, crushed with sadness, and get all up in uher face and start snapping pictures. Or is that what she wanted, by wallowing in a public grassy area instead of her own dorm room. How many pictures of her did you take. One? Or with your new digital supermax, did you snap like fifty or seventy. But you are a photojournalist, right. So, it is all ok.

And I bet is wasn't just you either. I picture a pool of photojournalists. Like at a Congressional hearing for Gonzales. Or a bush news conference. Like 100 photojournalists. And is the subject aware of your presence? Well, no... she couldn't be. She is so caught up and overwhelmed with her sorrow what she is oblivious the the 100 cameramen circling around her snapping, snapping, snapping. So this is all spontaneous, recorded visual history. I'm sure.

Same goes for all those potential Puliter's..... I get the feeling of a spectator in a zoo. Caged subjects. I do wonder about this. Since this is a site for psychoanalysis of the visual media. Some of it is great and revealing. You have posted some helluva a pictures and I know Mike loves you. But some of it looks like fraud.

Also, do any of the photojournalists ever shout out directions to the subject matter. It is had to imagine that they don't. Like a director or a producer of a film. Look up, raise your hands to the sky, turn to the right. I know you have heard this, and probably thankfully particpated.

Your comments too are a little melodramatic. And with their own tinge of latent racism. Against white anglo americans. We can't help it if Asian women have become sex objects. It is the fault of the ad media. How do you think black women feel now that a self respecting black man wouldn't dream of dating a black woman, much less marrying one. Very unchick.

Ps - does anyone else believe there should be physical fitness standards for law enforcement personnel as there are for soldiers.

All these 350 pound tubs running (and I use the word "running" loosely) towards the building with assualt rifles in their hands. It is more comical than one gets of the feeling of a real solution on the way for hundreds of helpless kids being gunned down.

Here I come to save the day.....

[Alan Chin]

to NoContest:

There's no question that there were too many photographers and TV crews on this story. part of my note to Michael was about this, which he didn't print, because it was my rant about what we call "goat-fucking" or "cluster-fucking" -- that is, way too many lenses sticking into some poor person's face -- there was more media in Virginia than I've ever seen anywhere, and that includes political conventions, the Iraq invasion, Katrina, you name it.

Now I'm part of this. Part of the problem. I do my best to be less intrusive than most, to not use huge long lenses or a flash, or "snap like fifty or seventy" images at a time. The B+W photos here are shot on film, only 36 frames in the camera. The color is digital but i would hardly call it a "new digital supermax." (though i like that description!) In general, I shoot two or three frames and move on. In this case I would shoot one or two with the film camera and then another one or two with the digital. Does that make me invisible or any less of a goat-fucker? No. But within the realities of a situation all I can do is try my best not to be the worst offender, to do right in accurately showing what I see without becoming too much of a vulture. I am sure that this will not excuse what I do in your eyes. But there simply isn't any other way to photograph other than to be there photographing.

I NEVER "shout out directions to the subject matter" -- that would be setting the scene up, which is the very opposite of everything i believe in -- and, in this situation, would have been unethical in the extreme. I have, in my career, seen tabloid photographers do that kind of thing but I have never "thankfully participated." I did not see any photographer do anything of the sort in Virginia.

Now, to what I think is the more substantive issue here, which is the subjects' awareness of goat-fucking and the participation within...these people were openly, publicly, mourning. To some degree at least they, I believe, understood that to do so, on a campus swarming with the media, is to express their emotion to the world at large. Which is not a bad thing, IMHO. There were a few people, who, as soon as they saw me beginning to take a picture, would gesture for me to stop, and I always did so. Anyone who doesn't want their photo taken gets their wish respected by me.

Melodrama? Latent racism? You must be kidding. All I'm saying is that stereotypes do exist and that this mass murderer fits some of them. I do not think that my comments in any way attack white anglo americans or anybody else.

[MonsieurGonzo]

“I'm a Chinese-American... and the murderer was Korean. While at a bar, this student bought me a drink ~ because he was worried that racists might attack me, and...

...and he wanted to reassure me! ”

that was your best shot...

...that was the story, Alan :-/

[NoContest]

Sorry Alan, everyone's emotions are running high over this whole shocking situation. I just reread what I wrote and plead temporary insanity. I'm in Colorado, The epicenter... Still raw subsurface nerves, -- a poor excuse, but my offering of one none the less.

I know you are a huge asset to BagNews. You don't have to share like you do - and I assume you are compelled to do it by a highly developed sense of moral and social justice. And here I am - biting the hand that feed us. I've just donated another 100 to the site via paypal in retribution. The places you've been and the things you've seen at your young age. I shake my head. My apologies, -- on second take, I mischaracterized your work in my first rant. Your selection of photographs are heart rendering. That last girl kneeling was the one that I doubted, -- but now, I stand corrected. Again, your forgiveness brother? Peace out.

Ps - And actually thanks for your response to my rude note. You laid it on the line. That was looking in the rear view mirror, and not liking what you have seen at times in your career.

But we look ahead not behind, don't we? Every day we move forward... we have to.

Or else we would all just die of collective grief.

[CE Nelson]

"You have posted some helluva a pictures and I know Mike loves you. But some of it looks like fraud."

Whatever. Pretty nast post, overall.

Alan, couple of three shots working for me, not that you're looking for me or any to point out what's what.

http://bagnewsnotes.typepad.com/bagnews/images/0704170305a.jpg
http://bagnewsnotes.typepad.com/bagnews/images/0704170204.jpg
http://bagnewsnotes.typepad.com/bagnews/images/0704170834.jpg

The third is pretty bleak. All three communicate grief very well. Thanks for sharing these.

Craig

[ice weasel]

Alan, you're a nice guy, there's doubt about that. You're a talented photographer, I would absolutely want to say that.

With that said, I'm really underwhelmed with the images posted here. It's really pedestrian stuff that frankly, doesn't show me anything I couldn't infer from being close to any tragedy. Unlike the other work of yours that's been posted here, there is no real insight, that I can see at least. Just snapshots of a scene. It's possible that I'm missing something but thus far, the stuff posted is really truly average.

And nto to go all meta on you but one thing you said did pique my interest. You talked about the goat/cluster/fucking and frankly, I would have learned something new if you had shot and posted those images instead of the ones that I did see here. At least that would have a been a perspective that would be new to me. Sure, it's the media covering the media, something that is all too common but on serious tragedies such as this one, it's one we don't often see. Unlike people praying, crying or just looking sad and confused.

Alan, once again, let me retiterate my sincere gratitude to you for having the balls to come in here and discuss this stuff. I apologize that I couldn't be more complimentary in my commentary.

[The BAG]

ice,

Because I edited the collection, I thought I'd link to two of the pics Alan sent that didn't make the cut.  I'm not sure if this first one is common or as common, as you say.  Certainly, this second one, however, does divert completely in tone. 

To be honest, though, I hardly registered the microphone shot because every other picture (including the approximately 12 more, or so, I left out) was consistent in feel with those I posted.  I don't offer these shots in Alan's defense, as he's his own guy, and your observation is an interesting one.  I just thought, in my role as curator, I could lend some more background. 

Also, I think it makes your observation even more interesting that one single shot in the package (not anymore, but also not zero) involved a different approach -- apparently, addressing the goat business. 

As for the cops with the flowers, was there a hint, or more, of irony there? (And is that why I practically automatically bounced that one too?)

[ice weasel]

Mr. BAG, thanks for stepping and saying what you did. I appreciate it.

And to be perfectly clear, I mistyped my first sentence. I meant to say that there is NO doubt Alan is a nice guy. And I want reinforce my sincerity here because not many people offer themselves up for discussion, or in my case, criticism on their job. Politicians have entire staffs and departments to deal with that. The rest of us, such as Alan, just deal with it.

So my comments are meant to demean his work, just offer up my opinion on these particular images.

Maybe I'm just worn out seeing people, however sincere, rending their garments and gnashing their teeth in public. It brings me back to Schiavo in a way. Look at the images that we were awash during that news cycle. You would think that the fate of millions was hanging in the balance (which isn't to say that even a single life isn't significant...).

I don't have to have a friend or son or daughter that was a victim at VaT to know what those pictures mean. And if I didn't make this point strong enough in the first post, the difference between these VaT images and Alan's amazing work after Katrina was, I could not possibly imagine the horror that was New Orleans. I had to have my face rubbed in it, as it were, to really understand the scope and depth of the tragedy. VaT, by comparison, isn't the same thing and merely showng grieving really doesn't give me much insight. I've lost family and friends, sometimes as pointlessly and inexplicable as this tragedy.

Again, perhaps this is just one person's feeling and everyone else needed to see these to understand.

And after a sense, that's what journalistic photography is supposed to do, right? Give us insight that mere words cannot?

Thanks for listening.

[ummabdulla]

I hesitated to say so before, but I had sort of the same reaction as ice weasel. None of the photos really struck me or made me think or question (well, except to wonder what the weather was like when the first one was taken, since the women on the left are in T-shirts while the one on the right is bundled up as if for a snowstorm).

In this case, I was more intrigued by Alan's written observations. Maybe the old adage "A picture is worth a thousand words" isn't always true?

The photos that the BAG just linked to are more interesting to me, maybe just because they show something different than what we've seen everywhere for the past week.

[Cactus]

Nocontest's comments show an amazing lack of knowledge of the photographic experience, from the photographer's POV. Responsible photographers always try to be least intrusive in any situation. But if they weren't there, you would probably be among the first screaming for photographic evidence. BTW, we don't "psychoanalyze" the images. The attempt is to be critical in our judgment in order to further the evaluation of how images are being used. We may take into consideration the choices of the photographer, the editor and the publication, among other considerations. You are new to this site, but for a professional assessment, I suggest you read The Bag's introduction to this site.......Well, that is what I wrote before I read your apology to Alan. As one who (also) shoots first and asks questions later, I felt I still had to submit this, in all humility. And IMHO, I have not detected any latent racism in Chin's comments or his work.

Now for the photos........the one that struck me most was the last one. The lone student, in her own solitude and contemplation. The background almost seems to take on lavender from her purple coat, the only other color being the green grass. It immediately struck me that it could be a comparison to Kent State, the stunned shock of the students then and her seeming stunned solitude now. I dunno.....it was a connection I made immediately and I just wondered if Alan had that same connection.

[ummabdulla]

It occurs to me that maybe none of the photos really struck me just because there was this large group of them, and they were small... It might be because of the layout, and I might have had a different impression if there were just one or two.

[laki]

Alan,
Both my sister and I graduated from Virginia Tech, and we both have friends still in the Blacksburg area, (more so my sister who just left Blacksburg last year).

Our reaction to the media coverage has been mixed to say the least. On a personal note, the worst example has been the news, both cable and print, here in Hawaii. My sister went to a special service at a catholic church, and was hounded by reporters. One reporter sat down next to her and kept asking her questions in the middle of it without asking her permission, and persisted even after she asked her to leave. My sister also made a comment to another reporter that a friend of a friend had been wounded and on the news that night they showed a picture of her crying while saying, "And this girl lost a close personal friend in the shooting". In short, she went there for a chance to grieve and meet with other people going through the same thing, and the media completely ruined it for her.

That being said, I have to admit it does help me to see pictures of the mourning going on at Tech. I don't know why, but it does.

As you can see, I'm still trying to work through my thoughts on this subject, but your comment about it being ok to take pictures because students were "openly, publicly, mourning" evoked a mixed response from me. While I'm sure you were respectful, many journalists were not. If VT students want to get together with each other and mourn, the drillfield is really the only place to do it if you are living on campus and don't have a car. The fact that you had people wave you off shows that there were people who needed that chance to gather but didn't want to be bothered, and merely the act of waving someone off is a bother. To put it a different way, imagine you were at one of your parents funeral and you had a bunch of reporters taking pictures and saying it was acceptable because the graveyard was a public place.

As I said, mixed feelings and I apologize for this rambling post. I could make this post 10 times as long, (Tech actually has a very low Frat/Sorority population vs. total number of students which is one of the reasons I choose it, etc), but I just want to close on this. I would really like to see the Bagnewsnotes community's take on CNN posting a picture on their front page of the killer pointing a gun at the camera. It was powerful to say the least, but it almost made me want to throw up. I’m still pissed at CNN for not putting it behind a link because I wasn’t ready for it. That being said, after having a couple of days to reflect on it, what should the standards of news sites be to show shocking pictures of a tragedy?

[Alan Chin]

Laki,

It's funny, and we photographers were talking about this while we were in Virginia, how different cultures react. Many of us have covered all kinds of terrible events in many places, around the world, and, usually, the people you photograph practically demand that you do so...

...they grab you by the sleeve, tell you that you have to come with them, and they take you to their destroyed house or funeral of a loved one or mass grave or people mourning...and they want you to use the cameras that you are carrying, and do your job, to show the world...

...and I think they do this because they perceive us (the media) as their only voice, their only ability to get their story out. And if they are Bosnian or Afghan or Palestinian, for example, they feel that they've been the victims of great injustice, and being photographed by a member of the foreign press may be their chance to influence hearts and minds...

But in the United States the experience is totally opposite. Many people are very protective of their privacy, many others have a really negative view of the media. So always these questions of "sensitivity" and "intrusiveness" arise -- and they are very fair and legitimate questions -- but I do ask myself, why? Why in the USA does it come up like this?

And I think, the answer is that we live in a far too over-saturated and debased public culture, too cynical, too jaded. And too many of our journalists, like my colleagues in Hawaii, are too aggressive, competitive, and downright rude.

If this was a massacre in most of the world, there would have been a total of a couple dozen journalists there, not thousands. There would be the BBC, the NYT, maybe the Wash. Post or LA Times, Time, Newsweek, the British papers, a couple of French and Germans, AP, Reuters, AFP, and a couple of local outlets. And that would be it. And by and large these would be people that have spent lots of time covering this kind of thing, with the experience to do so respectfully.

And the people being photographed and interviewed would not have this American sense of being sensationalized and of it all becoming a circus. They are still naive enough, or perceptive enough, to see us at face value, rather than assume that we're on some ratings quest or self-serving agenda.

Still, as the whole uproar over the NBC images of the murderer shows, we have become so reticent, so upset, over the showing of "controversial" materials. To my mind there was NO DOUBT that the pictures of Seung Cho needed to be shown. Whatever you think of them or of how NBC handled it, it unquestionably adds to the public understanding of what happened to see his own view of himself, his self-portraits, his rantings and ravings on the videos. To not have shown them would have amounted to self-censorship.

And, we have this odd attitude towards showing violence (and sex) -- it's OK for fictional TV shows and movies to splash us in blood -- but not the real thing?!? To the point where the US government still does its best to limit images of American casualties in Iraq, to the point where we NEVER get to see the actuality of events...

In Iraq itself you watch Al-Iraqiya, Al-Arabiya, and Al-Jazeera, and they all show you images that by American standards would be unacceptably bloody and extreme. In Europe, the major news magazines like the French Paris Match or the German Stern will show you far more candid imagery than is the norm in Time or Newsweek.

So, on the one hand, I am disgusted at the actions and attitudes of some of my colleagues, who spoil it for everyone by their thoughtless approach, and on the other, I am even more disgusted that they don't then publish a more honest and uncensored product.

And, now I realize this may be peculiar to me because I am a photographer, but I did photograph the funerals of my loved ones (father, grand-mother, etc.) as did some of my friends who came. I did so and I wanted my photographer colleagues to take pictures because I wanted a record, something that hopefully I might one day show the next generations of my family, that we not only knew how to live well but to die well and mourn well.

Finally, to those whom these images did not impress or mean much, that's how it goes, sometimes...I can't claim to be able to do right by everyone all the time. Often, I work very hard on a story and the pictures fall short. Of course I'd rather that everybody love everything! But that wouldn't be reality. It's part of the process -- to accept that most of my job is "near misses" and "almost" and "OK" rather than "amazing" or "great" -- which clicks into place only once in a while.

Thanks, Alan

[Dave Mc]

Quoting from Alan...
"usually, the people you photograph practically demand that you do so...
..and they want you to use the cameras that you are carrying, and do your job, to show the world..."

I was going to say something very similar in response to an earlier post: photos taken in iraq. Theres nearly always someone standing in frame pointing as if to say 'look, look what they did, show them what happened here'

Regards the NBC debacle... i sense a pattern here, as soon as ANOTHER oh-so-american tragedy occurs, instead of asking the difficult questions or even just telling the news, the american media goes into a tailspin about themselves and their access to the news and how they report it and blah blah blah blah the event fades into the past and America slides on to the next train-wreck. The media is only interested in one event : Itself.
Its disgusting.
But really theres only one way to deal with it. Turn it off.
If you dont like the new religion, then stop going to its church.

[PTate in FR]

I'm late to the thread, but it's a fascinating discussion. I was blown away by Mr Chin's photos--but, living in France, I haven't experienced the 24-7 coverage, the salivating media, that US residents have had. And I'm a fan of his.

What I found powerful about these image is the grief that Mr. Chin has captured in almost every shot. The situation must have been saturated with sorrow, but even so, the pictures communicate all kinds of different reactions from many different people, from open weeping to the most subtle,micro-reactions.

The picture that several people have mentioned, the last one, of the girl sitting in the grass, is perhaps the one I least respond to. It is, it seems to me the most predictable, the most stagey.

It reminds me of that in the US we have hidden death away. We die in hospitals hooked up to technology or in distant wars, and most deaths occur when people are old. We have few role models of how to respond to death, no shared cultural drill except occasional narratives provided by the media and film. Since the death of Princess Diana, we have made monuments with flowers. Jackie Kennedy's stoicism provided a standard for more than Presidential funerals.

Many students at Virgina Tech, perhaps the majority of them, have likely had no first hand experience of death, much less something as violent and horrible as what happened there. So in addition to the shock and grief, they are trying to learn how to respond.

I also appreciate Mr. Chin''s comments, and agree that "we live in a far too over-saturated and debased public culture, too cynical, too jaded." I wonder how much of the conversation about obtrusiveness is because (ignoring the photographers) these children of the media age are both experiencing their genuine shock and sorrow, and at the same time, conscious of the media lens on them, observing themselves as they experience shock and sorrow. They see themselves through the lens of the camera. The picture of the girl on the grass appears, to my jaded eye, to be posed, and I am a little suspicious of its authenticity especially when compared to the other photos. I believe it is genuine, but at the same time it seems to closer to the "someone watching how I am reacting to this Horrible Tragedy" conciousness.

We used to smile at cultures that were suspicious of photography, fearful that it would "steal their souls."

[ice weasel]

I guess then the only follow-up I would ask of you Alan is, are you happy with what you brought back from Virginia? Do you feel as though you captured something that we wouldn't have otherwise seen or shown us another side or depth to the event that we wouldn't have known about?

Just curious how you feel about the work.

[Michael Eglin]

You are incorrect concerning your assumption about the collective singing of Amazing Grace. I spent 25 years in the Northeast and 3 out of 4 funerals include Amazing Grace as a hymn selection.

Just because it was initially published in William Walker's Southern Harmony, doesn't mean that the folks up north didn't pick it up and run with it. Keep in mind that the foothills of the Appalachians run straight into New York State.

If you had mentioned California, or Nevada as States that lack the ability to effectively sing the tune, you may have been right, but nowhere on the East Coast.

Regards,
Mike

[ummabdulla]

"...they grab you by the sleeve, tell you that you have to come with them, and they take you to their destroyed house or funeral of a loved one or mass grave or people mourning...and they want you to use the cameras that you are carrying, and do your job, to show the world..."

Yes, and isn't that because their voices and pictures really aren't being seen? Which certainly isn't true with Va. Tech. The deaths of these 32 people was on the front pages of newspapers all over the world; TV stations all over the world showed live coverage of the incident as it happened, and they talked about it for days afterwards - maybe not as much as the domestic news in the U.S., but it still got enormous amounts of time compared to whatever tragedies occurred in the rest of the world.

(I even read about one American soldier in Afghanistan who wanted to know why they were flying their flags there at half-mast, when they didn't even do that for the deaths of their own soliders right there in Afghanistan. Good question. And I live in Kuwait; this was front-page news for days, and the Amir immediately sent condolences from the Kuwaiti people. As far as I know, he doesn't send a daily cable to the Iraqi government for the many more people who are killed there every day.)

A lot of those people in other places believe that the American people really don't understand what their government is doing in their name. And they believe that the American people are good and decent, and if they realized, they would do something about. Especially since they're sold the idea that in a democracy, the government listens to the people. That's why they want the photographers to see what happened and to show the rest of the world.

None of this applies to the Va. Tech community. They know they're going to be covered, and that every detail of the shooting will be reported. And that every victim will be honored appropriately, their pictures and biographies will be published, their friends and families will be allowed to talk about how wonderful they were, the students will receive counseling and special considerations for completing their studies. This will be the subject of TV programs and films, and the anniverary will be commemorated every year... not so for university communities in Baghdad...