South Carolina Paper Devotes Two Front Pages to Student House Fire

By: Joe Strupp For a second consecutive day, The State of Columbia, S.C., has devoted its entire front page to one story -- the deadly house fire that killed seven students from the University of South Carolina.

While Monday's paper included stories and photos of the blaze that began early Sunday at a beach house in North Carolina, Tuesday's Page One offered only photos of each of the dead, along with a center shot of two people hugging at a memorial event, with no stories.

"Today, it is all about the victims," said Tonnya Kennedy Kohn, managing editor of The State. "It has a different tone, a memorial tone, making it quiet."

Kohn said Wednesday's paper may also include a fire-only front page, with perhaps one other unrelated story. Most of it, she says, will be devoted to the 911 calls, which the paper also posted on its Web site.

"We are a college town and the University of South Carolina is so much a part of this town and the community and it makes the kids that go there part of everything," she said. "It was a very easy decision. The most important thing in Columbia is the kids who died."

At The Daily Gamecock, the student-run newspaper, Editor Jackie Alexander has been on the story since Sunday afternoon when her newsroom first got word of the fire from The Star News in Wilmington, N.C., where the fire occurred. "I have had to make more decisions in the last 48 hours than I have in my entire life," said the 19-year-old journalism major. "It is a big learning experience for us, everyone is grieving and we still have to go to class."

The paper posted its first story online at 1:30 p.m. Sunday, followed by a news alert to some 13,000 students who have registered for such alerts this semester, the first time the paper has offered them.

Among Alexander's major decisions has been not to reveal the names of the dead students until the paper is able to write up profiles of each and contact each person's family. Even though the Associated Press and others have reported the names, she wanted her staff to present them in a complete manner.

"We felt that in covering our campus and our students we need to get the information from our sources," she said. "The names are widely available if someone really wants to get them. For us, it is better to have something constructive."

Daily Gamecock staffers are also declining to conduct on-camera or phone interviews with the press, unless the questions pertain to their coverage, Alexander said, noting she turned down Larry King Live Monday night. "We are not here to speak for the university, that is not our place," she explained.