Tragedy in the news

This past Tuesday, as you all know, IU lost one of its own when Kappa Kappa Gamma senior Ashley Crouse lost her life in a car accident, right in front of her house.\nNot the way you want to end your days, for sure.\nFor us, the incident proved to be a test, on many different levels. What we will and won't show, what we will and won't say and many different levels of emotional turmoil were all questions we had to deal with regarding this loss of life. Not to mention that more than a few of the Indiana Daily Student staff knew Ashley well, and thus were affected personally as well as professionally.\nWhen it hits all of you, it hits us too.\nThe night of the crash, a concerned reader almost immediately e-mailed one of our photo editors, David Bracho, asking him to not publish pictures of the crash. The reader said they were writing on behalf of more than a few people who said they didn't want to find out what kind of effect that photo would have on the morning's classes.\nWhen it affects all of you, it affects us too.\nThe photo came in almost as the management was making the final adjustments to the front page. There wasn't even enough time to put a story in -- just the photo, with an explanation telling readers to check www.idsnews.com for more details.\nIn what I am sure was an appeal to good taste, the management put the photo below the fold, so the crash wouldn't be the first thing people saw when they picked up the paper.\nWednesday's paper, of course, had proper coverage of the events, including crash details. \nNews staffs are not immune to emotion.\nBracho went out on Tuesday afternoon to photograph the various memorials around the campus. The night before, his photos were on Indianapolis television, giving Ashley's friends and family back home an idea of what had befallen her. That afternoon, however, was a little different. After coming back from some of the vigils, he said that there were some pictures he just couldn't take. No one with any kind of heart wants to stick a camera lens in the face of a grieving friend. So he stood back, shot what he could of the vigils, and came back to the office.\nNews staffs sometimes have to face the unavoidable truths.\nOn Wednesday, a photo of the large impromptu march down Jordan Avenue ran surrounded by stories about it, the accident and the memory of Ashley. The facts of the story were hard: Ashley was the only person in the car not wearing a seatbelt, meaning that Ashley's death likely could have been prevented. The driver, for now, has gotten away. And that she was struck right in front of her own sorority house made the story even harder to swallow. As hard as the facts were, the lighter side was just as meaningful: Ashley was a well-liked campus citizen, being in Kappa Kappa Gamma and running on this year's IU Student Association Kirkwood ticket. She was spontaneous. She played soccer. When she was struck, she was found and attended to by IU students who had been trained in IU's respected Emergency Medical Technician program.\nIn the presence of friends and kind strangers, Ashley didn't die alone.\nAnd by allowing the IDS to cover her death and her remembrance, Ashley's friends, family and the IU community got to see, experience, and learn from the tragedy.\nNews staffs are the record keepers of history.\nNow that she is a part of IDS history, Ashley will never be forgotten.