Thank you! I did end up Googling it after i posted, but I had to gripe first. It's such a pet peeve of mine that online articles don't include that information by default.

I'd get it if it was like Baltimore or Boston or Los Angeles, etc. but Columbia isn't really a very unique city name.

I know that's probably the excuse, but when you publish an article online, your audience isn't necessarily local anymore.

Even in local, physical papers it can be problematic if you are a small state or bordering several nearby states.

All they need to do is mention the city and state once at the very beginning of the article, and that would completely solve the problem.

And it goes without saying that acronyms should never be used without spelling out the full name/phrase first. Someone who writes for a living should know better.

This is a bit off-topic, but I have to ask- why do so many online news articles fail to identify the state the reported incident has taken place in?

I'm assuming South Carolina for this one. The author also even references what I presume is a university by its acronym without actually specifying which school they're talking about. How am I supposed to know which MU they're talking about if I don't even know what state this story is coming from?