The Amazing Work of College Journalists; The World Sets More Heat Records–Coachella Valley Independent’s Indy Digest: May 9, 2024

Indy Digest: May 9, 2024

The turmoil on the nation’s college campus has had one small, but significant, positive side effect: The amazing work of student journalists is getting much-deserved praise.

I learned far more about journalism while working for my college newspaper than I ever did in classrooms. That’s not to say the classes I took didn’t have value—they definitely did—but so many things that a journalist does can only be learned by doing them.

And, boy, a lot of college journalists have done a lot of learning in recent weeks.

The Los Angeles Times talked to three college journalists about their coverage of the protests. One example:

After serving this school year as the news editor for the Daily Bruin, UCLA’s independent student-run newspaper, Catherine Hamilton had plans to retire from journalism and pursue law school when she graduates in 2025.

But on the first day of her planned exit, pro-Palestinian protesters set up an encampment in front of Royce Hall—demanding an end to Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip and that UCLA divest from Israel and companies that sell weapons or services to Israel.

Hamilton immediately mobilized and went to the encampment “every single day” to report on the developments, she said.

Covering the story turned dangerous. Alongside three of her peers from the Daily Bruin, Hamilton was verbally harassed, followed and beaten by pro-Israel counterprotesters last Wednesday when a mob attacked the encampment. As she tried to get away, Hamilton said, she was punched repeatedly in the chest and upper abdomen and sprayed with an irritant. She was briefly hospitalized.

Hamilton’s call to duty typified the work of student journalists, who have often been first to chronicle the turmoil on the campuses they know so well.

Because they know their campuses better than anyone—and have more access than outsiders—college journalists have best been able to report on the poor judgement (and worse) of administrators during these protests. The Times wrote: “At UCLA, Hamilton said they ‘were promised (24-hour) access to one of the buildings in the quad where the encampment was, to remain safe,” but they were barred from entering the building, which “specifically became a problem Tuesday and Wednesday when we did not have anywhere safe to immediately retreat to.'”

Time magazine, meanwhile, did an excellent survey of some of the work college photojournalists have turned in during these protests. I highly recommend checking out this piece, which includes a lot of photographs. This quote—from a 19-year-old freshman photographer for the Daily Princetonian at Princeton University, about the need to document the calm moments in between the chaotic moments—resonated with me: “It’s easy to get swept up in the narrative of the most exciting images. In between is all this quiet space—like the middle of the night, early morning—when people are just hanging out.”

These journalists are also battling disinformation—including mistakes by professional journalists. Wired reported on these efforts, and included this quote from Katrina Ventura, a student at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism: “I think the way that people saw the protest was completely different from how we observed it on campus. It wasn’t as rowdy as had been depicted. It was actually quite peaceful. The coverage was closed off to the press, and they only had a few moments inside campus, so it was easy for (media) to make mistakes … It was ripe for disinformation in that sense.”

There’s a lot about the state of journalism in 2024 that concerns me. But the work these college journalists are doing gives me hope.

—Jimmy Boegle

More News

• So who had a presidential candidate, as this ABC News headline put it, claiming a “doctor said (a) parasite ‘ate’ part of his brain” on their 2024 bingo card? What a weird time this is. Some details: “The parasite was discovered in 2010, when doctors scanning his brain concluded that a cyst there contained the remains of a parasite, (Robert F.) Kennedy (Jr.) said, according to the New York Times. In the deposition, the contents of which ABC News has not independently verified, Kennedy cited a doctor who told Kennedy he believed a parasite had eaten part of his brain before dying. Doctors interviewed by ABC News clarified that these types of parasites don’t actually eat brain tissue. Rather, they absorb nutrients passively before dying.” So there ya go.

• A Southern California city has declared a public health emergency due to a tuberculosis outbreak. NBC News reports: “The City Council of Long Beach, California has authorized a public health emergency in response to a local outbreak of tuberculosis. The city’s health officer, Dr. Anissa Davis, declared the emergency last week, after its health department detected 14 tuberculosis cases at a single-room occupancy hotel. The City Council vote on Tuesday night served as the final approval for the declaration. Nine tuberculosis patients have been hospitalized and one has died, according to the health department. As of Monday, about 175 people had been exposed to tuberculosis as a result of the outbreak. In a news release last week, the department said that ‘the population at risk in this outbreak has significant barriers to care including homelessness and housing insecurity, mental illness, substance use and serious medical comorbidities.’”

• Time magazine reports that for the 11th consecutive month, the world has set new heat records: “The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service said last month’s temperatures globally were 1.58°C (2.8°F) above historical averages and marked the hottest April on record. The past 12 months have been 1.61°C higher than pre-industrial temperatures, exceeding the 1.5°C threshold that policymakers and scientists say could threaten life on the planet. ‘Whilst temperature variations associated with natural cycles like El Niño come and go, the extra energy trapped into the ocean and the atmosphere by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases will keep pushing the global temperature towards new records,’ Copernicus Director Carlo Buontempo said in a statement.”

• Today’s recall news involves … an insulin-pump app! NBC News explains: “The FDA has issued a statement following the Class I recall for an IOS app used in conjunction with insulin pumps after 224 injuries were reported. The mobile app in question is version 2.7 of t:connect, which functions with the t:slim X2 insulin pump with Control-IQ technology. … According to the FDA, Tandem Diabetes Care Inc., the company behind the app, issued the recall due to an issue with the software which may result in the app crashing and automatically relaunching repeatedly. This leads to excessive Bluetooth communication which could drain the battery life of the insulin pump, causing it to shut down abruptly. Such a shutdown could delay insulin delivery to the body and cause life-threatening injuries and conditions like hyperglycemia or diabetic ketoacidosis.” Eek.

• Can weight-loss drugs help lead to pregnancies? CNN reports on the possibility: “Ozempic and Mounjaro are part of a class of drugs called GLP-1 receptor agonists, which act by mimicking hormones in the gut involved in insulin regulation and appetite. … And because of the way GLP-1 drugs work, experts say, there are reasons they may lead to more pregnancies as well as cause for caution about their use in early pregnancy. For one, weight loss can generally be associated with increased fertility by restoring normal ovulation in people who have PCOS or other causes of abnormal cycles, said Dr. Daniel Drucker, a professor and researcher at the University of Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital and a pioneer of research into GLP-1. … One scenario that’s ‘quite conceivable,’ he said, is that someone who has obesity and doesn’t have frequent menstrual periods starts one of these medicines, loses weight over several months and finds that they’re still not having regular periods—‘only now it might be because you’re pregnant.’”

• And finally … fast-food workers at large chains in California now have a $20 per hour minimum wage. Other workers are asking: What about us? The Los Angeles Times reports: “Stephon Harris makes $16.35 an hour at the (Sacramento-area) Rancho San Miguel Market, ringing customers up for pints of fresh salsas and masa. A few hundred feet away, at a Jack in the Box drive-through, workers are making about $4 more an hour thanks to California’s mandatory $20 minimum wage for fast-food employees that kicked in last month. ‘I would like to make that,’ Harris, 21, said as he assisted customers. … The fast-food and healthcare wage requirements join a separate patchwork of mandates ordered by some California cities that require employers to pay more than the state’s $16 hourly minimum wage.”

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