Editor,
I am writing this letter at a time when so many at the University of New Mexico are still reeling from the news of the two members of our community taken away from us, Professor Hector Torres and Stefania Gray.
I am not writing to apply any sort of blame or judgment on the Lobo for its coverage of the horrific event, nor to offer up my praises. I would rather discuss my sentiments on the matter later, after the shock of the event has had time to diminish from our University. I write because I want to remind, not just the Lobo and its staff, but everyone, that though we are a large body, UNM is a community, and that as a community we need to take the time to care for one another. The coverage by the Lobo of the murder was, in my opinion, objectifying of the victims, sensationalist in its presentation and insensitive to the UNM family that knew and loved these two people.
Now before you remind me that to cover the news is the job of UNM’s newspaper, please take some time to think about this. What happened was not a scandal that involved a handful of people we do not know. This was the ripping out of two lives intertwined in our community, people who worked with us each day and touched all of us.
I could take time to say who I think was wrong on the Lobo’s Web page in the discussion of this and who I think was right, or even criticize the approach of the article, but none of that would be helpful and none of that would speak the issue that we need to look at now.
The loss of Hector and Stefania was one felt by us all. We, the members of the UNM community, the members of this family, lost two people from our numbers. These are not facts, cold and simple to be accounted for. These are the lives of people who need to be honored. Yes, I say need and I mean it, but let’s be clear; that need comes not from them, nor from the violence that was done to them, but from those of us who remain, from those of us who still feel the empty space they left.
We need to remember who these people were and what they meant to us all, not allow their deaths to be something that can simply fill a block of text. Yes, the Lobo has every right to report the story. I would even go as far as to say that it has a mandate to report such things, but it has a responsibility as part of our community to remember the amount of respect and delicacy that this loss we all have suffered requires in its handling.
R. Allen Baros
Graduate student
