Declaring the patch of University of Missouri campus where protesters were camping a "no-media safe space," race protesters bullied a student photographer this week, sparking outrage in the news media and elsewhere.
Student photographer Tim Tai, on assignment for ESPN, was blocked from shooting photos and bullied, ironically, by a Mizzou communications faculty member, who, in a video of the incident, rallied other protesters to use "muscle" to "get this reporter out of here."
In the video, Tai tries to explain to the increasingly hostile crowd that the media has every right to cover the protests that resulted in the resignation of the university president and chancellor over race tensions on campus. The two administrators only resigned after the school's football team threatened not to play in solidarity with student and faculty claims of persistent on-campus racism, which protesters say university officials ignored.
In since-deleted tweets captured by the New York Times, the activist group leading the protests, ConcernedStudent1950, defended its actions by tweeting, "We truly appreciate having our story told, but this movement isn't for you," and "We ask for no media in the parameters so the place where people live, fellowship, & sleep can be protected from twisted insincere narratives."
But the need for privacy doesn't preclude the First Amendment, which, as Tai pointed out in the video, is the same right that gave the protesters a right to be there in the first place.
While many journalists took to Twitter to support Tai's efforts, some weren't surprised Tai was met with such vehement pushback in an age when the media is villanized by the very people it hopes to inform.
"What happened to Tim Tai @nonorganical today happens to students reporters in ways small and large almost daily," Twitter user and journalism professor @reedkath tweeted. "But not nearly as publicly."
Student photographer Tim Tai, on assignment for ESPN, was blocked from shooting photos and bullied, ironically, by a Mizzou communications faculty member, who, in a video of the incident, rallied other protesters to use "muscle" to "get this reporter out of here."
In the video, Tai tries to explain to the increasingly hostile crowd that the media has every right to cover the protests that resulted in the resignation of the university president and chancellor over race tensions on campus. The two administrators only resigned after the school's football team threatened not to play in solidarity with student and faculty claims of persistent on-campus racism, which protesters say university officials ignored.
In since-deleted tweets captured by the New York Times, the activist group leading the protests, ConcernedStudent1950, defended its actions by tweeting, "We truly appreciate having our story told, but this movement isn't for you," and "We ask for no media in the parameters so the place where people live, fellowship, & sleep can be protected from twisted insincere narratives."
But the need for privacy doesn't preclude the First Amendment, which, as Tai pointed out in the video, is the same right that gave the protesters a right to be there in the first place.
While many journalists took to Twitter to support Tai's efforts, some weren't surprised Tai was met with such vehement pushback in an age when the media is villanized by the very people it hopes to inform.
"What happened to Tim Tai @nonorganical today happens to students reporters in ways small and large almost daily," Twitter user and journalism professor @reedkath tweeted. "But not nearly as publicly."
