The following piece, written by the editorial editors, reflects the majority opinion of the editorial board.
There are a lot of emotions pulsing through the Miami community right now. As we attempt to deal with the loss of Rebecca Eldemire, there's a whirling blend of sadness, confusion, frustration and anger in all corners of our campus.
The same emotions have been circling around The Miami Student newsroom the last couple days as we attempt to tell the story of Rebecca's life, and untimely death. As student-journalists, we are often split between the human tendency to leave things alone and the important instinct to gather facts and seek truths. In this situation, those two sides mold together. We have a job to do; and yet, we write, report and talk about this with heaviness.
Eldemire's death was tragic and unsettling, not only for her friends and family, but also for the entire community. We have an obligation as Miami and Oxford's news source to report on these happenings. We have an obligation to search for information about the crime and Rebecca's life, to have hard conversations with people who knew her. This doesn't mean we are exempt from the emotions that come with this, the pain of losing a young woman who also called Miami home.
In our reporting so far, many of us on the Editorial Board have gathered fragments of Becca's bright personality. From talking to her roommates, professors, friends and mom, we've gotten a glimpse of a girl whose story is worth telling and remembering.
Becca was more than just the girl in the police report written on Sunday. She was a girl who once nervously moved into a tiny dorm in Peabody Hall. She wanted to change the world, in one way or another. She was 21. She laughed a lot. She posted photos on Instagram. She liked Bagel and Deli and she went to Starbucks. She was one of us. And we need to know, we need to come as close as possible to finding out, what happened.
The more we uncover, the more we are impacted by her death. We are stunned by it, but that shouldn't stop us from pursuing the facts - if anything that should light a fire in us to keep going.
At the beginning of this week, we were all left with questions about what happened at Level 27. Rumors were flying on social media and through whispers across campus. What if we just let those rumors spiral and ultimately decide the fate of Becca's story?
If we didn't do our job, it would be a disservice to the student we lost and to our community. If we left this issue alone because it's sensitive and complex and troubling, we wouldn't move forward. Unless we search for answers, unless we seek interviews with her loved ones, unless we make those difficult phone calls and analyze records, Becca's story will be stuck. So as we continue reporting and investigating, we know we may draw criticism from people who think we are doing too much and those who think we're doing too little. But, no matter the feedback, we are certain about our mission. We need to make sense of what happened.
There are questions lingering in our minds that we have a responsibility to answer. What really happened? How can we, as a community, move on from this tragedy, but keep Becca's memory going?
These aren't easy details to flesh out, or to be found at the end of Google searches, but they are important. These questions mean something, they will influence a person's legacy and they will inform a community.
We're not chasing a headline or the buzz or simple answers.We're invested in the realness, the facts, the genuine story of what happened. Our reporting is a way of bringing light to this situation, and attempting to remember Becca in the right way.
This means we have a lot of work to do. Each person on The Editorial Board is on a mission, and it's all in the aim of the truth.