New York Magazine Enlists Columbia Student Journalists to Cover Pro-Palestine Protests

For a cover story on the pro-Palestine demonstrations at Columbia University, New York Magazine enlisted the help of students from the Columbia Daily Spectator, the university’s independent student newspaper.

“On the morning of Wednesday, April 17, Columbia University President Minouche Shafik was scheduled to address Congress about antisemitism on campus,” a post about the collaboration began. “Hours earlier, in the dead of night, pro-Palestinian students began executing plans to occupy the school’s South Lawn. The events that unfolded over the next 14 days — protests, counter-protests, the takeover of Hamilton Hall, and an NYPD crackdown authorized by Shafik herself — convulsed the Columbia community and college campuses nationwide.”

“For our latest cover story, we collaborated with the Columbia Daily Spectator, tasking some of the student reporters, writers, editors, and photographers at the forefront of protest coverage to revisit the events that started it all,” the caption continued.

The collaboration from the two outlets features three pieces from the students: oral history “Our Campus. Our Crisis,” portrait series “Listen Up, Columbia” and student poll “Should Columbia’s President Resign?” In each, the student journalists reflect on the protests at Columbia and how the university has grappled with the results.

“The staff of the Columbia Daily Spectator, the nearly 150-year-old undergraduate newspaper, has been covering every minute of this story,” editor-in-chief Isabella Ramírez explained of the decision to collaborate with the media outlet. “Recently, New York Magazine asked us to create this report, leveraging our intimate knowledge of the university and its people to tell the story from the inside.”

“Our reporters, writers, editors, and photographers polled more than 700 Columbians to better understand what happened, took more than 100 portraits of members of the community, and compiled this oral history of the two weeks that forever changed our university.”

The magazine features come as the conflict between Israel and terrorist group Hamas continues and civilians in Gaza face grim conditions, though a deal for a temporary ceasefire appears to be possible, according to media reports.

The Columbia Daily Spectator gained financial independence from the university in 1962 and has continued to operate as an independent news outlet for Columbia and the surrounding community ever since. The students publish content five days a week, and the paper is the second-oldest college daily newspaper in the United States.

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