A Few Good Reads On The Missouri Protesters And Journalistic Outrage

A Few Good Reads On The Missouri Protesters And Journalistic Outrage By now, you've probably heard about the video from Monday of protesters at the University of Missouri asking a student photographer — shooting on assignment for ESPN — to leave them alone, chanting, "Hey hey, ho ho, reporters have got to go!" YouTube While protesters have since publicly welcomed reporters into their midst, the video sparked discussions about the First Amendment and public spaces — and a whole lot of anger and scorn, lots of it directed at a faculty member who asked for "muscle" to help keep reporters away, but much toward the students themselves. Today, Jelani Cobb posts a great essay at The New Yorker getting at the anger toward student protesters, comparing it to the public mockery and even threats students at Yale have come under for complaining about racially insensitive Halloween costumes on campus: "That these issues have now been subsumed in a debate over political correctness and free speech on campus — important but largely separate subjects — is proof of the self-serving deflection to which we should be accustomed at this point.. Sponsor Message I would argue the broad journalistic outrage clouded another worthwhile story: a bunch of black and brown students in the midst of a giant protest who had just won a major victory — ousting the president and chancellor of a major public university system — seemingly felt confident, at least in that moment, that they didn't need the established mainstream national press to get their message out.