Columbia U. Newspaper Kids Working ‘Overtime’ to Get Protests Right

For reporters at Columbia University’s independent, student-run paper the Columbia Daily Spectator, covering the chaos flaming the university’s metal gates over the Israel-Hamas war has become both a mission to get the first draft of history right and a quest to make sure the national press doesn’t get it wrong.

“Our reporters have really been working overtime,” said Esha Karam, the 21-year-old managing editor of the Daily Spectator. “We’ve been on the ground, covering protests both inside and outside of campus at all times and all hours. We've faced unique challenges both as students who are living on campus and reporting at the same time. We've tried to gain a diverse array of perspectives.”

Columbia has had to deal with hordes of protestors in and outside its gates, an uprising from its staff and students, a shift to virtual classes, and calls for President Minouche Shafik to join other Ivy League leaders in resignation over her decision to allow the NYPD to clear out a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” that resulted in the largest mass arrests on Columbia’s campus since 1968, when officers used violence to clear out students protesting the Vietnam War. It followed her testimony before Congress to address antisemitic incidents on campus, which a small group of Spectator reporters bussed down to Washington, D.C. to cover.

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