Student reporters: this is how the information lock was broken during the protests in Columbia

Since the start of the war in Gaza, newspapers and university radio stations have been covering in detail the turmoil on US campuses. Also the bitter debate on anti-Semitism, with a solvency worthy of professionals: the Crimson, the Harvard University newspaper, reported accurately and accurately on the offensive against the rector, forced to resign due to pressure from politicians and donors. Then the protests gained speed and, this week, the university radio and press journalists, supported by their young and budding colleagues – the journalism students -, became at the same time protagonists of the events – the closure of the campuses to students. informants made them the only possible source—and witnesses to the whirlwind of history.

After the complete closure of Columbia as a result of the occupation of a building by protesters, on Monday, the students “had what all the journalists [profesionales] They were looking for: access to the campus,” summarizes Juan Manuel Benítez, professor of local journalism at the Columbia School of Journalism, the epicenter of a mobilization that is sweeping the entire country. Benítez, who previously worked on local television NY1, supervised the coverage of his students this week, in addition to offering them logistical and professional support, and on occasions he put on his fatigues again to, “while editing texts [de los estudiantes] and gave them all the logistical coverage they needed, recording videos and images” of what was happening.

A group of about 40 students became professional journalists within days: their photos of what was happening on campus have been distributed by large international agencies; its live connections, broadcast in prime time on television. The coverage of SpectatorColumbia’s newspaper, and campus radio, WKCR, also reached enormous heights.

Benítez is proud of the performance of his students, “not only have they put into practice everything they learned, but their work has not gone unnoticed, as demonstrated by the assessment made by the Pulitzer Prize committee” (in a statement, he thanked students for their efforts to “document an important national news event under difficult and dangerous circumstances”). Because as Benítez explains, the police operation was disproportionate: “In my 20 years of experience as a journalist, I had never seen such a police deployment in New York.” Take care of the safety of young people and at the same time contain the drive of the profession in the face of the spiral of events – the entry of the police into the building by an articulated staircase, the dismantling of the stores, the departure from the campus of dozens of protesters tied with plastic ties—was not easy to put together.

When the police deployed around the occupied building, the image faded to black: for one or two hours, the time it took to vacate the building, the young journalists found themselves confined to their faculty, “under threat of arrest.” That’s why they continue, tirelessly, trying to unravel what happened in that period, “investigating, asking the police to film the entire intervention, trying to answer many questions,” concludes Benítez, “because this doesn’t end here, it doesn’t end on Tuesday.” ”. The video released by the police, which was recorded by the officers’ cameras and shows a friendly and peaceful evacuation, does not satisfy the questions of the students, forever bitten by the bug of the news and by the intrigue of the keys.

Logistical and emotional support

“Since April 17 [cuando se levantó el primer campamento]”My colleagues have been at the forefront, especially on Monday, during the eviction,” explains Carla Samon, a student on the Master’s in Journalism. Many of them told what happened “for local and international media, as it began to become increasingly clear, with the restrictions on access to the campus, that the only information came from within.” Professional journalists had to settle for a two-hour slot a day to enter the premises, but visiting hours were canceled on Tuesday as events precipitated.

Samon, with professional experience in Peru and Brazil, appreciates “the incredible logistical help of the professors, a key support in allowing access to the interior when the campus was already closed.” They did so “perfectly identified with A4 size bibs on which it said student press”. He also values ​​“the emotional support” of teachers. “They pointed their phones at our forearms in case we were detained. Some of us have professional experience, but many saw themselves in something so big for the first time.” His group spent an hour and a half confined to the doors of their faculty, “watching the buses leave with the detainees inside.” By instinct, never better said, journalistic, his colleagues stayed overnight at Pulitzer Hall on Monday, sensing that the end of the camp was imminent. “Teachers brought pizza for dinner and former students of the school contributed to buying food.”

The commendable informative work of the students was carried out with obstacles, says teacher Giannina Segnini. “Before calling the police, Columbia’s administration decided to completely restrict access to its facilities and deliberately refused to allow journalists, even its own journalism students, despite the School’s best efforts. of Journalism and our dean and professors. I could not get in. The few journalism students and professors who were inside covering the events when police took control of the Hamilton building were registered on a list as essential workers, not journalists,” she explains.

Segnini remembers how, after the police stormed the campus and restricted the movement of student reporters, they were forced to leave. “A few, including journalists from the student radio station, were able to take refuge in the School of Journalism and were told to either remain there or risk arrest.” “Witnessing the repression of the most basic freedom of the press in what is considered the cradle of freedom of expression not only generates deep frustration for all of us who have dedicated a life to the exercise of free and independent journalism, but also carries deeper implications. “These and other double standards weaken the defense of democracy and eat away at the world order that has protected us since the end of World War II,” the professor concludes.

Teacher criticism of police repression

Margaret Sullivan, executive director of the school’s Craig Newmark Center for Journalism Ethics and Safety, dissects the outside media image of the protests. “I would like to see more publicity given to the student protesters and their reasons. And more importantly, the immediate human rights crisis in Gaza is more important and deserves more coverage than what is happening on elite campuses,” she stresses. The British journalist believes that “the protests show no signs of stopping due to the repressive measures, although there will be a temporary stoppage on campuses where there is a sustained police presence.” [en Columbia, hasta el 17 de mayo]”. “If anything,” Sullivan continues, “I think students, on a
national scale, will probably redouble their efforts, without reaching the levels reached during the Vietnam War.”

Among the Columbia Journalism professors, the same discomfort is perceived as in other colleagues on the faculty: critical voices proliferate that, beyond the epic coverage of the events—especially for apprentices of the trade—they regret a breach of trust in the university community. “What happened on Tuesday has no excuse or justification. Talking with my colleagues, I can say that we are hurt, frustrated, furious. And I know I’m not the only Columbia professor who thinks the chancellor [Minouche] Shafik should resign. I just don’t see how he’s going to be able to repair his relationship with the community of students and teachers,” adds Daniel Alarcón, a professor at Pulitzer Hall, the journalism school. Shafik requested police intervention on two occasions, to dismantle the first camp, on April 18, and to vacate the campus this Tuesday, so he faces a probable motion of confidence requested by the faculty.

Even the dean of Journalism protested on Tuesday against the restrictions imposed on reporters, both professional and university, recalls journalist Leyre Santos, who is pursuing a postgraduate degree at the European Institute of Columbia. “It seems like they didn’t want witnesses and they got just the opposite,” she explains. “One of the university’s main concerns was setting up the stands for the graduation ceremony, which were installed right on the esplanade where the camp was set up, which gave the students very strong negotiating power.” But the closure of the Columbia authorities, “who did not let anyone in, not even the professors, as if they were a threat to stability,” attracted more attention than an open-door policy.

The official speech of the rectorate pointed to “Columbia as a target of external agents and [a] that the closure of access to the campus protected us from external interference,” says Santos. The mayor of New York himself, Eric Adams, speaks openly of “foreign agitators”, who, according to police sources, would be almost half of the 300 arrested on Tuesday between Columbia and the Municipal University of New York (CUNY). The newspaper The New York Times This week, the figure for “unrelated elements” among those detained was 29%, but the calculation itself is fundamentally flawed, since it refers, Santos points out, “to those arrested inside the campus and outside the access fences.”

Columbia boasts its activist history: the mobilizations of its students against the Vietnam War occupy a prominent place in its figurative border. But if the university that awards the Pulitzer Prizes, the hallmark of international journalism, has risen to the occasion today, it has been thanks to the work of the juniors of the profession, not because of the facilities provided by the management. “We were aware of being privileged to have direct access to events; the news before our very eyes,” concludes Samon. News in real time, as palpable and elusive as history.

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