The fact that Cho Seung-hui, the killer in the Virginia Tech massacre, was of South Korean extraction has caused heartache and confusion for some.

In Seoul, local citizens held a prayer vigil at the U.S. Embassy, shocked, they said, that Cho was a South Korean native. In southern California, home to the largest South Korean ethnic community in the U.S., there were expressions of shame and fear that there would be some retaliation against South Koreans in America.

In a controversial move, the Asian-American Journalists Association urged "all media to avoid using racial identifiers unless there is a compelling or germane reason."

Most would agree that the populace doesn't blame South Koreans at large for what Cho did. Yet the media must tell all it knows of the subject about whom it reports. Cho's looks and name cried out for his identification as a South Korean. (He was a permanent resident in America.)

Stars and Stripes, like all other media, did so, though in the process left a mistaken impression. The Page One subsidiary headline two days after the shooting called Cho "a student from South Korea." Though the headline was literally correct, readers might have thought Cho's home was in South Korea and he was an exchange student. In fact, Cho's family emigrated to the U.S. 15 years ago when he was eight years old.

Unlike other American newspapers, Stars and Stripes distributes several thousand newspapers to the military in South Korea daily. So Cho's ethnic identity was a locally germane fact. The episode only highlights the difficulties media face in situations where ethnicity plays a role.