Student Journalists Covering the Campus Protests at UCLA, UT Austin, CCNY Are Writing History
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No one else can quite understand what sustains a college campus, what renders it a living, breathing, ever-evolving ecosystem, the way its student journalists can. All too often, when tragedy, trauma, or monumental history strikes a college campus, students are left with the nearly impossible task of showing the world what no one else can: what truly happens when such events shatter a campus community and all the ways in which it puts itself back together.
This burden of truth, of historical record, and nuance that student journalists must carry was illuminated over the past few weeks as Gaza solidarity encampments took college campuses by storm with students pushing administrators to divest from companies with financial ties to Israel. As media coverage of the encampments, subsequent arrests, and disciplinary actions intensify, there hasn’t been much on what exactly this entails for student journalists themselves. What does it mean to bear witness to history as a journalist first and a student second? What does it mean to risk arrest, one’s safety, and well-being in dedication to reporting on the institution where you study, work, and live?
Teen Vogue spoke to student journalists at three college newspapers across the country to learn more about their experiences covering the encampments and the police response at their respective campuses.
The Campus Magazine, City College of New York
When hundreds of NYPD officers swarmed the City College of New York’s (CCNY) campus to clear the CUNY Gaza solidarity encampment, Leon Orlov-Sullivan, editor-in-chief of CCNY’s student magazine, The Campus, was one of the only student journalists there. He was able to enter the quad on campus through a small, unattended gap between barricades and came upon the ominous blare of the NYPD’s final warning, “Since you have refused to leave the campus, you are being placed under arrest. If you fail to comply or if you resist arrest, additional charges can be placed against you.”
Orlov-Sullivan began to film on the magazine’s Instagram live stream as the NYPD tore down blockades fashioned from metal trash cans and assorted benches, advancing toward the encampment in the center, and he captured the frenetic scramble of student protesters dismantling tents and giving their laptops and personal belongings to other students for safekeeping. As journalists from other media outlets began to leave, Orlov-Sullivan said he was one of the last to go. “Somebody had to be there to have not just an eyewitness account, but also a live account, and also a video account of what happened,” he told Teen Vogue. The Campus’s staff is only four people, which meant Orlov-Sullivan not only functioned as one of the only CCNY student journalists on campus that night but also as his own de facto fact checker and copy editor. “I wanted to write an article while I was there, but I was like, I can’t figure all this out right now. It’s just me. So, I’m just gonna turn on a camera. I’m just gonna be here,” Orlov-Sullivan said.
As the night wore on, viewers across the nation joined the live stream, watching as Orlov-Sullivan darted around the steps of the quad, just out of the NYPD’s reach, shouting out badge numbers of police officers, and narrating in real time. Even so, “I never really thought of leaving,” he said. “If I'm the only person who can speak to people, if I'm the person who can see what's actually going on with my own eyes, I'm gonna have to write about it. I'm gonna have to report on it.” Orlov-Sullivan said. “I'm [with] CCNY student media until I die — or until I graduate.”
The Daily Bruin, UCLA
After the first 30 tents of the Gaza Solidarity encampment were set up in front of Royce Hall on UCLA’s campus, Isabelle Friedman, editor-in-chief of UCLA’s student newspaper The Daily Bruin, helped facilitate a shift system to ensure that at least two reporters were on site at all times. When a counterprotest broke out and police came in to sweep the encampment, 25 of Friedman’s staffers worked through the night to deliver coverage to the campus community. “Watching live streams that night of fireworks hitting the encampment, metal barricades being thrown, and protesters suffering from tear gas, I was extremely concerned for our reporters' safety. Four of our staffers were assaulted by counterprotesters early Wednesday morning. One was injured and taken to the hospital,” Friedman told Teen Vogue.
For much of the staff at the Daily Bruin, life has been placed on hold. Balancing classes and additional jobs has been rendered a nearly impossible task, in favor of delivering round-the-clock coverage. “Every day, the strength and resiliency of our reporters impresses me more. Our reporters, editors, photographers, and videographers have put themselves in risky situations recently without balking,” Friedman said. “No one else is as familiar with the UCLA community as the Daily Bruin,” Friedman said, “We see it as our responsibility to lend our expertise as student journalists and inform campus and the nation at large.”
The Daily Texan, UT Austin
Breigh Plat, the managing editor of UT Austin’s student newspaper The Daily Texan, helped coordinate a buddy system for staffers when covering Gaza solidarity protests on campus. “We don’t send reporters to any area of our campus when they’re covering [this issue] alone and we keep an eye from the perimeter while our reporters might be in one area,” Plat said. The lifetime of the Gaza solidarity encampment at UT Austin, unlike most other campuses across the country, was incredibly short. On Monday, April 29, when protestors began to frantically establish an encampment, more than one hundred police officers, ranging from campus law enforcement to state troopers, proceeded to arrest dozens of student protestors en masse. The police presence still remains. “It's been really difficult to prioritize school when it feels like I'm witnessing something that is momentous in history, and I have a duty to tell that story accurately,” Plat said.
May in Austin is warm and sunny, but the now-delicate ecosystem that defines UT Austin has been thrown off its axis, and “it’s dreary,” Plat added. “Campus feels tense and scared. People are not congregating in spaces the way they used to. People are not openly sharing space, energy, commuting the way they used to,” Plat confided. And the staff of the Daily Texan isn’t feeling the way they used to either. Recently, they asked counselors from UT’s counseling and mental health center to provide additional support because “ultimately, we realized a lot of us that could help, that know what happened, are starting to feel disturbed by what we’ve seen,” Plat said.
What’s keeping Plat and their colleagues going is that “this is our chance to write the historical record accurately. Other people don't have the full account. They don't all the time. So I think that being able to testify to the truth is important,” Plat said. “Student journalists have a unique perspective and nobody who just comes in for the day, for the weekend, for the week can really get that same kind of experience.”
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Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue
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