Student journalists are heroes at protests
As Texas Department of Public Safety troopers dressed in riot gear fired pepper spray and flash-bang grenades into a crowd of young protesters on the University of Texas at Austin campus Monday, April 29, student journalists stepped up to document the chaos. They stayed on the scene to capture every detail as law enforcement roughly dragged dozens of protesters into custody.
Some of those student journalists came away with pepper spray in their eyes, scraped knees and temporary hearing damage from the grenades. But their work had just begun. They had photos and videos to edit, stories to write and social media posts to create. They also had finals to study for, projects to complete and essays to write. It’s the end of the spring semester, so seniors have been planning graduations while also worrying about the job market.
I’m a journalism professor at UT. We are lucky to have arguably the strongest college newspaper in the nation in The Daily Texan, which has consistently produced excellent journalism for more than 100 years. Walter Cronkite, Bill Moyers and even Lady Bird Johnson worked at The Texan, and countless other top journalists have started successful careers there. Since the Vietnam War protests, few student journalists have had to face the stress of the current staff.
Part of what makes The Texan great is its independence from the university. The students are free to hold the powerful to account and tell their stories without pressure from the school. Beyond staffers from The Texan, student journalists from Texas Student TV and several students interning at local news outlets also covered the protests.
Throughout history, student journalists have often been at odds with the official university stance. Some in the administration undoubtedly see student journalists as ankle biters and thorns. We see them as driven students who are doing their best to learn the craft in a maelstrom while also confronting all the pressures that young adults face, from learning to be independent to passing an astronomy exam. Right now, we also see them as brave storytellers who are working hard to make sense of a complex situation.
They are covering their own community of students and other young people who are risking their safety and academic
careers for causes they believe in. The state troopers have not been differentiating between student journalists and protesters.
The student journalists’ independence from the university also means they are independent from the faculty of the School of Journalism and Media. But that doesn’t mean they are alone. We stand with our students who are taking risks and putting themselves in danger.
Professional journalists at times will stand back from protests to observe safely from afar. Our students have been getting up close to the state troopers who pressed into the crowd while riding crowd-control trained horses and motorcycles. They have been pushed to the ground. Their immediate instinct was to snap photos of other students who had also been pushed down, to document the truth of what was happening.
The students have been pushing back on incorrect narratives, correcting misinformation and providing a clear view of what’s taking place on the campus as the university responds to the protests.
Their photographs have been featured in The Guardian and their work highlighted by Teen Vogue as an “outlet to follow.” Individual student journalists have been asked to be interviewed by NPR, the New York Times and other national and statewide news outlets while they also wonder how they’re
going to finish their English literature essay.
From their first days in our journalism courses, students learn how to practice journalism ethically. We teach them to write clear sentences, seek the truth in reporting, capture compelling visuals and much more.
Just this semester, we added a course on dealing with mental health when working as a journalist. The old ways of just pushing
your feelings away often meant many abandoned the field.
The situations journalists cover can be traumatic, and the national and state political landscape and the problems with the news media’s revenue model add to the stress.
Many of these students decided to major in journalism despite their own families urging them not to. They have
told us that they often don’t feel support from their own circles for following their passions. We support them, and we admire them.
They are teaching all of us.