Update of the update here - a clarification, and new info.

As we said on Radio Free Penn State this evening, the "Virginia Tech shooting victim costume" story is going to be THE story for the next week or so. We can only assume there will be an editorial in The Collegian on Monday, and various articles and letters-to-the-editor the remainder of the week. And we can already see that the story has picked up on the national front, as it has been hosted on MSNBC's website along with The Drudge Report among others. But, here's the problem with all those stories - from what we can tell, they don't quite have their facts straight.

Let's start off with someone who did it right - WSLS, the Virginia TV station that first broke the story last night (here's a video of their report). They talk about two Penn State students (one male, one female) who wore these costumes, but they never go so far as to name the students, and they don't show the pictures. They do conduct a phone interview with the guy who was wearing the costume (who we quote in our last post about this).

From here is where it gets a little dicey. In doing some searching for people wearing "Virginia Tech shooting victim costumes" we have found photos of at least three separate people (here, here and here), one of which is the female Penn State student. The other two men who are often shown are not Penn State students and have no connection to the school. One of them is featured on The Drudge Report at this moment. He is not, and never has been a Penn State student.

In fact, earlier tonight we spoke with him on Facebook where he said, "I have no links to Penn State at all. I'm just a random guy who's getting death threats." He has since removed his Facebook account.

This certainly doesn't make Penn State better or worse. But, it shows a problem in the media today, especially when it comes to a sensational story like this one. Although we've received many tips on who the Penn State students are in the photos, it has turned out that many of the tipsters were wrong. Some of the names you are reading or hearing about just aren't the girl in the photo, or the guy who conducted the interview with WSLS.

We have held back in naming anyone in this case, but as next week plays out, expect much more information to surface.