Andrew Mager

The past three days, I have spent countless hours in a classroom on the upper quad of Virginia Tech’s campus. The same classroom where I have sat for over 30 hours of academic credit. The same classroom where I took three of Roland Lazenby’s media-writing classes. The same classroom where the idea of starting a student-run new media website sparked in my head.

Now this…

I thought I wouldn’t have to buy newspapers after today, but it looks like I need to pick up tomorrow’s editions.

Planet Blacksburg is a young, small organization, but the wealth of information that our student reporters have dug up and spit out is monumental. We have turned a classroom into a newsroom. Today, we even had some people reporting on us..

We had people from the Newseum here, and even a camera crew from Chile.

It is remarkable how quickly the Internet can inform a community, a region, or a planet. I have learned so much about the media, and how important a student’s voice can be in such a tragedy like this one.

I need to take a break though. I am going home now, and I will try to stay away from the computer. I can’t promise that I won’t visit the Drillfield again though.