Skip to content Skip to footer

Journalists Covering Campus Antiwar Protests Must Be Safeguarded, CPJ Says

Student journalists “must be allowed to cover campus protests without fearing for their safety,” the group said.

Police react while pro-Palestinian students stand their ground after police breached their encampment at the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in Los Angeles, California, early on May 2, 2024.

Amid escalating tensions surrounding pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses nationwide, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) recently urged university authorities and law enforcement agencies to permit reporters, including student journalists, to safely cover the antiwar demonstrations.

“Journalists — including student journalists who have been thrust into a national spotlight to cover stories in their communities — must be allowed to cover campus protests without fearing for their safety,” said Katherine Jacobsen, CPJ U.S., Canada and Caribbean Program Coordinator. “Any efforts by authorities to stop them doing their jobs have far-reaching repercussions on the public’s ability to be informed about current events.”

As of Wednesday, students at more than 150 campuses have organized protest encampments to demand that colleges divest financial holdings from companies connected to Israel and its military. Over 2,000 arrests have been made by police.

“Repressive crackdowns on student protesters are happening across the United States, not just in Republican-led states like Florida but also in ‘blue states’ like New York and California,” Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg wrote for Truthout. “Students are battling on multiple fronts, confronting their universities’ ties to companies that supply weapons to the Israeli apartheid regime, facing college administrators’ repressive tactics, and pushing back against elected officials from both parties who smear them as antisemitic.”

Student journalists at these campuses have been at the forefront of covering the antiwar protests, with some even facing arrests while reporting on the demonstrations, despite clearly labeling themselves as the press.

“The protests mostly consist of chanting, praying and singing,” Arianna Smith, editor-in-chief of The Lantern at Ohio State University, told Politico. “The only time I have seen conflict arise firsthand is when police officers have gotten involved by yelling out warnings and initiating arrests.”

Since October 7, the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker — in collaboration with CPJ — has recorded at least 13 arrests or detentions and 11 assaults of journalists reporting on protests related to Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

“We are disturbed to see reports of student journalists assaulted or threatened with arrest on their own campuses,” the Student Press Law Center said in a statement. “All of us, including those on campus, are better informed when journalists can undertake their constitutionally protected duty without fear for their personal safety or wellbeing.”

Among those detained is FOX 7 reporter Carlos Sanchez, who was forcefully pushed to the ground on April 24 while reporting on a protest at the University of Texas at Austin. Sanchez is currently being charged with Class C misdemeanor assault and interference with public duties.

“It’s important to keep in mind that none of this would have happened if American universities weren’t inviting militarized police forces onto campuses to break up student protests,” Seth Stern, Freedom of the Press Foundation’s (FPF) director of advocacy, said in a statement. “The police response to the protests — against journalists and students alike — has been far more violent than the protests ever were.”

We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.

As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.

Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.

As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.

At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.

Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.

You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.