Missouri protesters welcome media, day after shunning it

The posts were widely shared online and published by local media, and follow the resignations Monday of the university system’s president and the Columbia campus’ chancellor after student protests over the university’s handling of complaints about racism. It also hinted that her work at the school may be in jeopardy. “I think they had good intentions though I’m not sure why it resorted to shoving”, Tai tweeted early Tuesday.

The group handed out flyers Tuesday morning to media members that said the media has a 1st amendment right to occupy the campsite where group members have camped out for more than a week.

Click’s exchange with the cameraman, Mark Schierbecker, came after she and other protesters had argued with a photographer named Tim Tai about whether or not he had the right to be there, then removed him from the scene by walking against him until he was forced to leave.

After protestors pushed a student photographer who was working for ESPN back from the encampment, Click told Schierbecker, a freelance photographer, that he also had to move outside of a circle that the protestors had made.

Ken Paulson, a 1975 Missouri journalism alumnus who heads the First Amendment Center at the Newseum, credited Tai with being “exactly right”, calling him “both professional and eloquent in his defense of freedom of the press”.

His post went viral, and the lack of any strong reaction by Mr Wolfe led to demonstrations at the school’s homecoming parade the following month, when protesters blocked the university president’s auto.

“It spread quickly through social media, and soon, a few black students were leaving their dorms out of fear, preferring to spend the night with friends off campus”.

She spoke to CNN prior to University of Missouri President Tim Wolfe announcing his resignation Monday. “To later find out that it was coming from a faculty member…directing people on her behalf to do violent things to students…we can’t have that”.

“I support the students who are still camping out and fighting for racial justice on campus”, said Elisa Glick, an associate professor of English and Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Missouri, in an email to Reuters. The School of Journalism is separate from the Communications Department.

“Journalism School faculty members are taking immediate action to review that appointment”, Kurpius said. “We reiterate our commitment as communication scholars to the transformative power of dialogue”.

Protests and rallies are still happening at the University of Missouri a day after the system president stepped down and the chancellor was reassigned.

UPDATE: This afternoon a Fusion reporter tweeted the picture below. “I wish she had handled the situation differently, but as a journalist it really just became part of the scene I was presented with and I never took her or anyone else’s actions personally”.