When it comes to covering a protest, expect the unexpected.

Barbara Beck learned that in November 1969 as she lay covered in tear gas with protesters in Dupont Circle.

As a freshman reporter with The Daily Orange, Beck headed to Washington, D.C., to cover a national protest against the Vietnam War. She went without telling her parents — or without much of a plan.

Recalling the reactions of other student reporters during the Vietnam era, Beck said protest reporting left the young journalists feeling conflicted.

“I was often torn between being a reporter and picking up a sign that said ‘Get out of Vietnam,’” said Beck.

After that first trip to D.C., Beck did not cover another protest. She said her ability to be more objective in reporting improved as she gained more experience and received help from her D.O. editors. In fact, Beck eventually became managing editor of the paper. She went on to work for The Philadelphia Daily News and The Los Angeles Herald Examiner as both a reporter and features editor.

From Vietnam War demonstrations to sit-ins expressing disapproval of the current university administration, student reporters and editors at The Daily Orange continue to grapple with effectively covering capricious and sometimes violent events on campus.

However, those challenging reporting experiences were sometimes the best learning experiences, recall D.O. alumni.

This fall, the D.O. staff got that same valuable experience. The semester marked a resurgence of student-led protests on campus with 10 protests, including an 18-day sit-in in Crouse-Hinds Hall, which houses the chancellor’s office.

Students protested different topics from the closure of the Advocacy Center, to the administration’s failure to consider divestment from fossil fuels, to what protesters considered an overall lack of diversity and transparency from the administration.

The coverage was led by current and former news editors Jessica Iannetta, a senior newspaper and online journalism and political science major, and Brett Samuels, a junior newspaper and online journalism major.

One of the many protests Samuels covered for The D.O. last semester was the Diversity and Transparency Rally. After the DAT Rally, protesters from THE General Body, a student coalition of more than 50 student organizations, marched to Crouse-Hinds Hall to begin what would become an 18-day sit-in.

Samuels hung around with the protesters for hours as his coverage expanded from a rally to the Department of Public Safety setting ground rules for the protesters who made Crouse-Hinds their new home.

Twitter became an important tool in the coverage of the sit-in. Constant updates on social media continued throughout The D.O.’s coverage, even bringing new followers to the @dailyorange Twitter account, according to Iannetta.

“I think Twitter was extraordinarily important for our coverage of the sit-in that happened, particularly because the people who organized the sit-in had such a large presence on social media already,” she said.

For Iannetta and Samuels, the hardest part of covering the protests was finding a balance between writing about the action and providing context.

While covering the protests, Iannetta and Samuels said they tried to talk to as many people on the ground, as well as contact organizers. At times, the staff covered the protests in teams to get the full picture. They would later speak with university administrators, who were involved in the protested decisions.

Iannetta’s protest coverage for The D.O. reminded her of the importance of being objective, particularly when it’s assumed that the job of a student newspaper is to advocate for students.

“A lot of people have this belief that if you’re a student publication, it’s your job to be on the side of the students,” Iannetta said. “So if the students are protesting the administration, then the student newspaper should be on their side. And I think that’s not true, obviously, because you have to be unbiased and just report the facts.”

Before Bruce Apar worked for years as the editor in chief and publisher for both Mediaware Magazine and later the North County News, he was a feature editor at The D.O. While there, he wrote and edited columns about protests on campus. He said the protests at SU in the early ‘70s felt like “an alternate universe.”

The significant change in campus culture has been a challenge for student journalists, but nonetheless a valuable experience.

“You’re really learning as you go in terms of field reporting, and you just have to sort of roll with the punches and figure it out yourself,” said Apar. “There’s no blueprints about it because it hadn’t really happened that way before.”

Published on September 10, 2015 at 4:55 am

Contact Anna: almerod@syr.edu