Posted on 11/20/2015 3:39:22 AM PST by markomalley
In an effort to create a safe space free from potential insensitivity from the news media, activists at Smith College barred reporters from covering a sit-in Wednesday that drew 300 to 500 students.
The demonstration, organized in solidarity with students at the University of Missouri, was held from from noon to 12 a.m. Thursday in the Smith College Student Center.
The activists' goal was to establish a place where students -- prioritizing students of color and black students -- could share their thoughts, feelings, poems and songs related to a rash of racially charged episodes this fall at Mizzou, as well as personal experiences of racism.
An event that draws so many people, especially one that concerns a topic of magnitude such as civil rights, is customarily covered by media outlets. But reporters who arrived at the sit-in were met with a clear message: Keep out.
Alyssa Mata-Flores, a 21-year-old Smith College senior and one of the sit-in's organizers, explained that the rule was born from "the way that media has historically painted radical black movements as violent and aggressive."
"We are asking that any journalists or press that cover our story participate and articulate their solidarity with black students and students of color," she told MassLive in the Student Center Wednesday. "By taking a neutral stance, journalists and media are being complacent in our fight."
Smith organizers said journalists were welcome to cover the event if they agreed to explicitly state they supported the movement in their articles.
Stacey Schmeidel, Smith College director of media relations, said the college supports the activists' ban on media.
"It's a student event, and we respect their right to do that, although it poses problems for the traditional media," Stacey Schmeidel said.
Schmeidel went on to say that the college reserves the right to remove reporters from the Student Center because it's a private campus.
Similar limitations have been put on media at demonstrations held at The University of Missouri and colleges across the country, including Amherst College.
"We ask for no media in the parameters so the place where people live, fellowship, and sleep can be protected from twisted insincere narratives," a tweet from an account associated with University of Missouri activists read, after asserting that they did not want their "tent city" where protesters had been camping to be photographed, according to The Atlantic.
The students pushed and shoved reporters and cameramen to keep them from breaking through and interviewing protesters in another instance, The Daily Beast reports.
Some journalists have spoken out in support of such media bans.
"The protesters had a legitimate gripe: The black community distrusts the news media because it has failed to cover black pain fairly," Terrell Jermaine Starr, a New York City-based journalist wrote for The Washington Post.
Schmeidel said that as far as she's aware, the sit-in was the first Smith event to bar media coverage.
Interesting, only can hear support. No ability to hear or process anything that is not support.
Say spoiled?
Who do they think they are? Hillary Clinton?
Any democrat!
No laughing matter: Hillary Clinton campaign ‘demands comedy club takes down video mocking her marriage, Monica Lewinsky and pantsuits
I’ve spent some time at both Smith and Mount Holyoke. While they are both bastions of liberalism, Smith takes the cake.
I ALWAYS felt welcome at Mount Holyoke. Their students were serious, and some of them seriously rich. But always respectful.
I alway felt “tolerated” at Smith. They were cordial. But the “wild ones” went to Smith. The mouthy ones were at smith.
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