With the wounds of Virginia Tech still fresh in the college psyche, last week’s shooting at Northern Illinois University served as a particularly harsh reminder of what has come to mark our generation.

The latest wave of media coverage has focused — yet again — on what causes students to turn on classmates and plan their deaths. Last April, the focus was on bullying and the anti-social behaviors which seem to mark a potential killer.

This week, floundering for coverage or quick answers, the 24-hour news cycle has tried to explain what went on in the mind of the Northern Illinois University shooter by “exploring” the effects of anti-depressants and Neitsche.

The truth is we will never know exactly what went through his mind as he ducked out from behind a curtain in a lecture hall on Thursday, but as news outlets scramble for content, the focus of their coverage seems to be more centered on the lives of the shooters than the victims.

The faces of the 32 students and faculty who were killed last April 16 are a blur, but the media flashed Seung-Hui Cho’s militant face over the next few weeks, making him perhaps the most notorious celebrity of the year.

The cycle of coverage is now completely predictable, but it has also become disastrous for the tortured few who crave fame to the point of desperation, and seem to kill in order to be remembered. Now, as the face of the seemingly “normal” graduate student Steven Kazmierczak is being splashed across national news, the most realistic perspective from the media seems to come from those who are closest to the tragedy: NIU’s student newspaper, The Northern Star.

In Monday’s issue, their front page touted the words of the university President John Peters, who wrote in a letter to students, “An act of violence does not define us.” The faces of the five NIU students who died — one of them a member of the NIU staff — are framed by the words of those who knew them best.

The coverage is more than just a sentimental tribute.

It throws a wrench in the gears of an over-aggrandizing system that gives the shooter more press than the victims.