Student journalists attacked, others arrested as protest on college campus turns violent

Student journalists attacked, others arrested as protest on college campus turns violent

Journalists assigned to cover violent riots on college campuses across the US have been arrested and denied access as police move to crack down on pro-Palestinian protesters who have set up camps and barricaded themselves inside buildings.

The confrontation with reporters came as student-run news outlets and traditional news media descended on college campuses where police officers have battled and arrested hundreds of protesters demanding the university sever any financial ties to Israel over the war in Gaza. On one campus, attackers reportedly followed and assaulted student journalists.

At Columbia University in New York, reporters said they were barred from covering unrest Tuesday night as police officers in riot gear stormed an academic building where protesters had been barricaded, resulting in more than 100 arrests. At the University of California, Los Angeles, student journalists reporting on violent clashes between protesters said they were attacked and gassed. And in Northern California, a local reporter covering a college demonstration was detained and arrested by police.

On some college campuses rocked by demonstrations, access has been restricted to students only, effectively making student journalists the only credible news media reporting on campus protests and clashes.

At UCLA, reporters for the student-run newspaper The Daily Bruin said they were violently attacked during Tuesday night’s fight, including being followed, slapped and sprayed with irritants, the newspaper said. Student Editor Anna Dai-Liu told CNN that she was gassed, and that other student reporters were attacked, with one reporter taken to emergency care.

“Just before 3:30 a.m., four Daily Bruin reporters were walking on campus when they were followed and then attacked,” the paper reported. “Five to six attackers also sprayed journalists with irritants. When several journalists went to help a reporter who was being pulled to the ground, the attackers started recording on their mobile phones.”

The newspaper did not say who attacked the student reporter, but violence broke out when counter-protesters, some of whom were pro-Israel, clashed with pro-Palestinian protesters on campus.

In the immediate aftermath of the violence, the Daily Bruin posted a scathing editorial on its website denouncing the school’s leadership and declaring, “UCLA is complicit in the violence inflicted on protesters.”

“Daily Bruin reporters at the scene were slapped and indirectly sprayed with irritants. Even if they are students, they are not offered protection,” the editorial said.

The university later announced it was canceling all classes on Wednesday “due to the distress caused by the violence that occurred,” overnight.

Working journalists arrested
Hundreds of miles away at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, three journalists were arrested while covering campus protests, according to a local public radio station, including a television news reporter who was arrested while filming the demonstration.

In video footage posted online, Adelmi Ruiz, an ABC KRCR affiliate reporter, seen wearing a newspaper badge and jacket bearing the station’s logo, was called by an officer behind a line of shield-wielding police.

“We need you to get out of the way,” an officer is heard saying.

But shortly after, the officer was heard telling Ruiz to put his phone and hands behind his back. An officer was heard saying he had been told to leave an “active crime scene.”

“They don’t care that I’m a journalist, it’s just that as long as you’re on campus they can detain you,” Ruiz later told a colleague in an interview.

Ruiz said his hands were zip-tied, he was placed in a police vehicle, and taken to the Humboldt County jail where his mugshot was taken. The sheriff later apologized to him and he was released, he said.

The student reporter stepped up
Meanwhile, at Columbia University, dramatic scenes played out on Tuesday night as police in riot gear moved to clear Hamilton Hall, an academic building that had been overrun by pro-Palestinian protesters. But there was little media presence.

Access was severely limited on campus after authorities barred reporters from entering the area, which Associated Press reporter Jake Offenhartz called “one of the most frustrating nights for press access I’ve experienced as a reporter.”

Meghnad Bose, a graduate student at Columbia Journalism School, told CNN’s Gabe Cohen that with most student journalists pushed out of the vicinity of Hamilton Hall, they were unable to witness what was happening.

“The footage we have from last night is very rare, and it has raised some troubling questions about the conduct of the NYPD on campus,” Bose said. “If we had more reporters, more student reporters there, we would know more about what’s really going on.”

CNN reporter Julia Vargas Jones, a graduate student at the journalism school, reported from the scene for the network, capturing police storming the building and arresting several protesters amid the chaos.

Without a production crew, Vargas Jones said he recruited fellow students to help him broadcast live on CNN, including journalism student Corinne Catibayan who had worked as a television reporter in the Philippines.

“[The police] came in and clinically pushed everyone to one side. As far as they’re concerned there’s no press there, they just expect to see students,” Vargas Jones said. “The officials didn’t know we were live on CNN.”

Although Vargas Jones also ended up being pushed off campus, he credits the Columbia School of Journalism for championing student journalists.

“The school helps student journalists gain access to the campus and allows them to use the journalism school’s facilities 24-7,” he said, noting that he slept overnight in the school’s editing room, along with Catibayan.

“It’s not consistent with what other administrations are doing,” Vargas Jones said.

Public interest in the brawl on college campuses is so high that some student-run news outlets are having trouble staying online amid the spike in viewer traffic.

Columbia University radio station WKCR reported overnight it experienced a “momentary outage due to connection overload” after providing live coverage of the shooting on campus. The school newspaper, The Columbia Spectator, was also difficult to access Wednesday afternoon.

UCLA’s Daily Bruin website was also inaccessible at times, sending potential readers to an error page saying the site could not be viewed.

Vargas Jones, who has been a professional journalist for 10 years, said that despite the challenges of covering campus activities, the flashpoint has provided student journalists with much-needed reporting experience and critical transparency for the public.

“Student journalists have a unique and important role on their campuses in monitoring and disseminating news,” said Gary Green, executive director of the Student Press Law Center. “It is precisely in times of crisis like this when such coverage is most needed and student journalists are at their best.”

Green said a group that offers legal representation to high school and college news outlets is disturbed by reports of student journalists being threatened and assaulted on campus. He urged school officials and law enforcement to ensure student journalists can safely and accurately report on the historic event.

“Now is the time to strengthen our commitment to the student newspaper, not sideline or undermine it,” he said.

Jelani Cobb, dean of Columbia’s School of Journalism, also praised the student journalists for their reporting on the campus protests.

“It’s truly inspiring to see our faculty and our students, shoulder to shoulder, covering the national news that appears on our doorstep,” Cobb said in a message to students Wednesday. “Your resilience during a confusing and challenging moment cannot be understated. You are telling a story that a global public deserves to hear.”