The University of Missouri’s journalism school issued a statement Tuesday commending student journalist Tim Tai for his handling of a confrontation with protesters on campus that was captured on a widely spread video.
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It was caught on camera when assistant professor Click shouted for the videographer to leave the area, and when he refused, she infamously shouted for “muscle” to remove him. Why she should convince a few of her peers who are still in high school to come here?
“This is the first amendment that protects your right to stand here protects mine”, Tai says in the video.
“The Missouri School of Journalism is proud of photojournalism senior Tim Tai for how he handled himself during a protest on Carnahan Quad on the University of Missouri campus”. David Kurpius, dean of the journalism school at MU, posted the news to Twitter just before 9 p.m.
That faculty member, Melissa Click, is a junior professor in mass media studies. She said, “Hey, who wants to help me get this reporter out of here!”
Brian Kratzer’s students had a singularly complex assignment in recent days: They had to cover the protests at the University of Missouri’s flagship campus in Columbia at a time when those protests had turned singularly hostile to coverage – and reporters.
“I have reached out to the journalists involved to offer my honest apologies and to express regret over my actions”, Melissa Click, who is an associate professor of communications, said in a statement Tuesday.
“I know that because of the lack of trust in general between communities of color and journalists in the way that things have been covered that there is a tension point there”, Kurpius said.
Missouri’s journalism school executive committee said in a statement that the video showed that its student journalists “acted professionally when faced with a hard scenario”, noted the Missourian. “I understand why the protesters wanted a safe space”. His dignity also speaks well to the Journalism program at MU.
Signs such as the one below were placed around the University of Missouri campus by protesters, but they have since been replaced with welcome notes for the media calling the incident this week a “teachable moment”. “We applaud student journalists who were working in a very trying atmosphere to report a very significant story”, it said.
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Before her resignation, Click issued an apology about the incident. Tai, who was taken aback by the development, tweeted he was troubled by the threats.
