CHICAGO — It was an unusual gathering. Amid a torrential downpour, two high-ranking University of Notre Dame officials and a handful of student organizers huddled under a tree late at night. The students had attempted to erect a pro-Palestinian encampment on campus May 2. Now, they hoped to negotiate.

Four reporters with the university’s student newspaper, the Observer, watched from afar. They were soaking wet from hours in the rain. They were also the only journalists on campus, where pre-clearance is required for outside media.

“In that moment, it was very much like, ‘We need to document this story,’” said junior Isa Sheikh, the newspaper’s editor-in-chief. “We were the only outlet on the ground.”

When 17 students were arrested later that night, the Observer was the first to break the news. They worked in their office until 4 a.m. the next day.

“Staying up all night in the midst of finals wasn’t great,” Sheikh said with a laugh. “But for me, the first priority is the paper and our coverage of the campus.”

Student journalists across the Midwest and the country have been thrust into the spotlight as protests against the Israel-Hamas War engulfed universities. With firsthand campus knowledge, they have provided some of the most detailed, compelling coverage of the movement that swept the country.

In Chicago, Palestine solidarity encampments have been assembled at Northwestern University, the University of Chicago and DePaul University, with students demanding divestment from financial assets tied to Israel. The DePaul encampment stood for 17 days before it was cleared Thursday. Meanwhile, U. of C. students briefly occupied a campus building Friday during the school’s alumni weekend. The student newspapers at all three universities have continuously posted live updates, offering minute-by-minute coverage of the unrest rocking their campuses.

“I don’t think you can understate the importance of the student press,” said Roger Boye, an associate professor emeritus-in-service at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism. “They’ve outmaneuvered the professional press, in many of these cases.”

The reporting has been applauded at a national level. The Pulitzer Prize Board — which is housed at Columbia University, the site of the first solidarity encampment — released a statement May 1 recognizing “the tireless efforts of student journalists” covering protests while facing “great personal and academic risk.” On the front lines, student reporters have been assaulted at UCLA and arrested at Dartmouth College.

Senior Lilly Keller was acutely aware of the risk on the fifth day of DePaul’s encampment, reporting at the center of a bitter clash with counterprotesters. Chicago police flanked the crowd on both sides, spilling into the street. She watched as students climbed the towering campus gates, unfurling both Israeli and Palestinian flags. The tension was palpable.

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