As police officers in New York City apprehended numerous pro-Palestinian protesters at Columbia University this past week, spectators from around the nation were not glued to their televisions or social media, but rather to a student-operated radio station.
The WKCR-FM website crashed on Tuesday as individuals attempted to tune into its live broadcast, seeking updates from a team of student journalists who detailed police movements and the clearing of the area around Hamilton Hall, which had been occupied by protesters. The journalists also recounted a tense confrontation where the NYPD threatened to arrest them.
“This is a challenging moment in many of our college careers,” Teddy Wyche, the station's student life director, stated on air. Some of the most well-informed sources of news about their campus, some WKCR journalists worked 18-hour days following the erection of the first tents at Columbia’s encampment about two weeks ago.
Throughout the U.S., from California to Florida, concerned listeners tuned in on Tuesday night to the broadcast. The appeal lay in the student journalists' deep understanding of their campus, providing reports with an unobstructed view that mainstream reporters could not achieve, listeners told USA TODAY.
“My wife and I were engrossed by it; we were genuinely concerned about what the outcome would be,” Columbia University alumnus Stuart Strickland remarked. The broadcast was at times chaotic, as student reporters interrupted each other to deliver the latest updates on police action and statements from embattled university President Minouche Shafik.
As the night progressed, the police presence on campus increasingly affected the broadcast. Student journalists, like other students, had their movements restricted, impacting their ability to gather news.
Some reported being threatened with arrest. Buildings were sealed off, leaving broadcasters stranded. Officers even forced journalists into buildings away from where police were operating.
"The police were saying if you don't go inside the building, you'll be arrested," WKCR station manager Ted Schmiedeler told USA TODAY. But "going inside would prevent (the journalists) from seeing what was happening." Schmiedeler said he was awake for more than 40 hours straight between April 29-30 as the station reported on the protests.
Despite the tense moments, no WKCR journalists were arrested. Their work even received acknowledgment from the Pulitzer Prize board: "In the spirit of press freedom, these students worked to document a major national news event under difficult and dangerous circumstances and at risk of arrest."
The radio continued to broadcast, and America continued to listen. Many listeners outside New York learned about the WKCR livestream on the social media platform X.
“It meant so much,” said Imani Mosley, who graduated from Columbia University in 2013 with a master’s degree in musicology. “Hearing it in their own words was really important ‒ that’s definitely different from how the mainstream media was reporting on things. Strickland appreciated how student journalists provided live updates based on things they could personally confirm, while many major media outlets struggled to obtain first-hand information.
“The picture I got of students, from students, was much closer to my experience of Columbia than the coverage from the outside world,” said Strickland, 61, who listened from his home in Berkeley, California. While he listened attentively to WKCR, Strickland said he had his TV on mute in the background, as he only wanted to hear the radio updates, which he said were more current.
Similarly, Karen Leader said she found the station’s livestream amid a barrage of other outlets on X, and immediately trusted it as a reliable source of news based on campus.
“I just felt incredibly grateful and glad to have found them,” said Leader, 64, an NYU alumna who listened from Boca Raton, Florida.
Students on air noted several times throughout the night that their website was experiencing a surge of visitors and kept crashing, and pointed people to other ways to tune in.
The students reporting that night said as the hours wore on, their movements grew more restricted by police. They were forced away from Hamilton Hall, where police focused most of their efforts, and the students reported facing threats of arrest themselves.
“Frankly, no one here is left to document whatever might go down at Hamilton Hall, as we are now being told to leave the premises,” reporter David Gonzalez said.
It was in the school's famed Pulitzer Hall that some of the journalists said they found themselves trapped during the 10 o’clock hour, unable to leave to go report because, they said, police officers threatened them with arrest should they come out of the building.
“A police officer poked his head in and told us that if we go outside again we’re going to get arrested,” journalist Ian Pumphrey, who was part of a group of six WKCR reporters stuck in Pulitzer Hall, told USA TODAY.
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“They even told Dean Cobb as well, that if he went outside he’d be arrested,” Pumphrey said, referring to Columbia University Journalism School Dean Jelani Cobb, who Pumphrey said was in Pulitzer Hall along with journalism graduate students.
Cobb didn't immediately respond to an email request from USA TODAY.
“I was the one outside … being pushed into the journalism building,” reporter Leon Zhou said on air.
“The police basically said, ‘You have to go back,’ and were threatening to arrest even the dean himself. So with all that said, we are I think we are sort of trapped here at least in the J-School building... for the time being,” Zhou said.
At around midnight, audiences listened with relief when the station announced all of its reporters made it back to the station safely, Mosley said.
“It was a lot of emotions,” said Mosley, 40, who listened in Gainesville, Florida. “Pride, being so amazed at how they were navigating this situation, and sadness they had to be in that situation in the first place.”
NYPD did not answer questions about why student journalists’ movements were restricted, but pointed USA TODAY to a news conference in which Kaz Daughtry, deputy commissioner of operations for NYPD, told reporters that when officers cleared encampments at New York University the “press kind of got in the way of our operation” while officers were making arrests.
While covering protests is always chaotic and comes with risks, experts say student journalists being threatened with arrest is unusual and concerning. Attempts to stop them from doing their jobs harm the public's ability to stay informed, experts said.
"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 with the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Columbia University, like many of the universities seeing mass protests, is a private institution, meaning school officials aren’t required to apply First Amendment rights. That includes the freedom of the press, according to Kevin Goldberg, a First Amendment specialist at the Freedom Forum.
“However, any student journalist has the right to be reporting on their community as long as it doesn’t interfere with police doing their jobs,” Goldberg said. “As a reporter you can’t just be there if it means you’re blocking law enforcement or putting the others at risk, but it seems as though (Tuesday) night, people were simply prevented from observing.”
Student journalists often report from protests where law enforcement is present. But the situation at Columbia was especially “unfortunate” given the university’s prestigious journalism school, Goldberg said.
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