Cameron Shultz, a graduate student who was hired by national television networks and local stations, took his camera and captured evocative images at an evacuation center and a candlelight vigil.

We’ve tried to teach our students that even the simplest story requires craft and discipline.

Consider the recent example of Alison Parker, a 24-year-old reporter for a Virginia television station. Like Mr. Bach, she’d started her career as an intern. Her last story was about Smith Mountain Lake, a local landmark.

The video that Ms. Parker’s killer posted of her murder reveals that he was pointing a gun at her, within her field of vision, for at least 10 seconds before he opened fire. Ms. Parker was interviewing the head of the local chamber of commerce. She was too focused on doing her job well to realize her life was in danger.

“When you go on television, you lose a bit of yourself,” said Rebecca Force, a veteran television news reporter and director who is now a professor at the University of Oregon. When a reporter is on live, as Ms. Parker was, Professor Force said: “You’re in the moment. You have little time. You’re on. There is no going back and erasing it. You have just one take.”

Ms. Parker and her cameraman, Adam Ward, died reporting the sort of everyday, unabashedly local story that is the bread and butter of news operations everywhere. She held the mike steady as her interviewee said, “This is our community and we want to share information that will help us grow and develop …”

Young journalists operate on a strange mix of adrenaline and idealism. They savor the rush that comes with making a deadline, or conquering the stage fright of a live broadcast. And they believe that if they master those skills, they’ll contribute something important to their communities.

“I don’t think that one photograph is going to change the world, but it’s a record of where we are,” the Mexican journalist Rubén Espinosa said in one of his last interviews before he was killed in Mexico City in July. He covered the drama unfolding in the Mexican state of Veracruz: official corruption, violent organized crime, disappearances, protest and resistance.