For Daily Reveille staff writer Chris Grillot, covering a bomb threat at Louisiana State University was “the most fun I’ve had this semester.” In a recent blog post, Grillot confirms his anxiety quickly segued to a pure adrenaline rush last week when a bomb alert began sounding in an LSU library.
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In his words, “Instead of going home, I met up with a photographer and a few other student journalists and scoured the campus for news, interviews, photos, bombs, etc. Though the threat wasn’t real, the excitement was. . . . To an average person, bomb threats at universities are pretty shitty. But when you work for a student newspaper, bomb threats at universities are absolutely awesome– especially when it’s your university.”
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According to Daily Reveille editor-in-chief Andrea Gallo, the alert prompted a full newsroom evacuation and forced staffers to temporarily work remotely. The paper also had to forgo a print edition for a day. But constant coverage of what was ultimately proven to be an empty threat continued.
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As Gallo writes, “There’s not much that can frazzle the Daily Reveille staff– we slept in the newsroom during Hurricane Isaac for God’s sake.”
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I understand the rush of emotion, but that’s an incredibly tone-deaf thing to write. What if there actually had been a bomb? What if someone was injured? Killed? With all the instances of campus violence over the past few years, maybe a little self-examination would be more appropriate.