the first rule of media relations for press conferences - if you can’t answer any of the obvious questions, DON’T HAVE THE PRESS CONFERENCE.
I’m still at work, so I haven’t seen the press conference, but I’ll still say a word in their defense. I know Dr. Steger, albeit just a little bit. He’s a university President so he should know something about public relations, but no one could be trained to handle the kind of situation that he and the others there have faced today.
He probably knew it was going to be a bad day first thing in the morning when he realized there was a murder in a residence hall. That doesn’t happen every day, probably not more than once every few years, but in a community of 26,000 people it does happen.
Nobody could have prepared him for what happened in Norris Hall just 200 feet from his office around 10am, because it has never happened before anywhere. He undoubtedly personally knows some of those who have been killed. In the last few hours, he’s had to oversee the evacuation of campus, relocate and set up a new office, gather as much information as he can about the situation, and probably report over the phone to the governor and numerous other state government officials.
It’s probably true that he isn’t really prepared to face the world media, but it’s also true that if he did not hold a press conference to share what little information he’s gathered, he would be criticized for that.
Just my opinion.