Dear readers,

While it has been a long weekend for us, the Student Media staff and N.C. State found out Wednesday that one of our own was killed in Libya. Chris Hondros was a Pulitzer prize-winning photographer for Getty Images, an N.C. State alumnus and Student Media photographer. The 1993 and 1994 Agromecks, and other N.C. State Student Media publications, are filled with his photographs and, since Hondros was an English major, English professors who taught him have reflected on what he was like while at N.C. State. Throughout the week, newspapers from across the country have written their final goodbyes to this amazing man, and we at the Technician would like to say ours.

Before I was editor-in-chief, I was a photographer. I had the pleasure of meeting Hondros when he came to present at a University Scholar’s Forum. He went through his photographs, some award-winning, and explained a little of what it was like to be a war photographer. I knew none of us in the room could truly understand his images or job, but it was still an honor to see him stand before us as a normal man, masking the fact he had been through so much. Hundreds of people came to see him present those days, but the idea that he could be here one year and gone the next was impossible to them.

As more news came in Wednesday, the more reality sank in.

Looking through old photographs he’d taken while he was here and when he moved on to war photography, it is hard to imagine something as simple as taking photographs is deadly. But Hondros had the same job as every other journalist, including us at the Technician: to report the news as thoroughly and accurately as possible. He served the people of the world by going to the front lines to follow a people as they struggled for their freedom and their beliefs.

That is journalism: going to places where people would not usually go or think to look, reveal the reality behind words and preconceptions with human faces.

Although our jobs at the Technician aren’t as dramatic as dodging bullets, we still aim to do the same job: tell the story of our communities and make sure they are informed. As a news organization, the Technician is a part of something greater than its staff members who doing something greater than themselves.

Hondros confronted life and reality head on. He showed you can’t sit behind a computer or on the other end of phone to tell the whole story. You have to go out and be in the thick of it, know the people behind the stories. Because of him, we know real people are behind the printed stories and the news on our televisions.

There are unnamed people behind the news itself. Hundreds of people around our country and our world are working every day to bring you the news, whether it’s printed or electronic. You may breeze over the bylines or captions in the paper or online, and not consider the time and effort put into the story or the photo you look at, but there is a person behind the name. They do exist and they will still keep doing what they do, no matter the cost.

And we at Technician will too. So here’s to another paper, update, story, photo and tweet.

Sincerely,

~Amanda Wilkins