As tensions mounted at UPenn encampment, student journalists stopped sleeping and started writing

After 33 activists were arrested and two professors detained, after student tents and Palestinian flags were loaded into a dump truck, after dozens of Philadelphia police in riot gear departed, the student reporters from the University of Pennsylvania’s independent newspaper peered through a chain-link fence at the empty College Green. They had been documenting the site nearly nonstop for 16 days.

Was it really over? A cluster of giddy seniors in caps and gowns drank directly from Champagne bottles nearby, soaking the brick walkway beneath them.

In a typical school year, the Daily Pennsylvanian breaks for finals in May, forgoing the last few weeks of coverage and easing into a slower summer rhythm. But this has not been an ordinary year.

In November, reporters for “the DP,” as everyone calls it, covered a “Freedom School for Palestine” occupation of a campus building. In December, they reported live from congressional hearings over antisemitism on college campuses, and four days later on the abrupt resignation of newly installed university president Liz Magill. (“Back then, I was just a reporter,” said politics editor Diamy Wang, 19, reminiscing nostalgically about the hearing five months ago.)

On April 25, a crew of about 15 student journalists began documenting the Gaza Solidarity Encampment on Penn’s campus as it pushed the university to disclose its investments, defend Palestinian students and scholars, and divest from corporations they say profit from Israel’s occupation and war in Gaza.

The student journalists stopped sleeping regularly. They pounded slices of Zesto’s pizza, called administrators, interviewed students, and updated a continuous live blog. The DP was the first to break the news that Penn asked Philadelphia police for help disbanding the encampment, a request that police declined. On Friday, a week after the original encampment was dismantled, DP reporters were back in the streets to document another attempt by 19 pro-Palestinian activists to occupy a campus building.

Ethan Young, an energetic freshman who projects a relentless optimism about the power of journalism and uses phrases like “the DP mindset,” set up a special “DP” focus mode on his phone, so that he would not be bothered by calls except for those from his newsroom colleagues. Katie Bartlett, the paper’s even-keeled 21-year-old news editor, helped set up a war room in the library adjacent to the encampment, where reporters could send dispatches to be immediately edited and published.

Together the team watched as peer reporters at college newspapers across the country were attacked by counterprotesters and arrested by state troopers. Before announcing the top journalism prizes in early May, the Pulitzer Board cited “the tireless efforts of student journalists across our nation’s college campuses, who are covering protests and unrest in the face of great personal and academic risk.”

“This is going to matter. This is going to mean something,” said Young, 19, who grew up in Fitler Square and is both a photographer and administration beat reporter. He has not yet declared a major.

A college newspaper is in some ways the epitome of a local news outlet, with students chronicling the institution that provides them with food, housing, and (school)work. Unlike many for-profit local newspapers, the Daily Pennsylvanian also has a relatively captive audience. A monitor in the DP newsroom displayed recent traffic analytics, showing 1.2 million visits to the site in the past 30 days.

The intimate nature of campus life fuels a near-fanatical insistence upon journalistic objectivity among the student reporters — a challenging stance to maintain during such a fraught moment on college campuses.

The paper, for example, reported on activists at one pro-Palestine rally collectively chanting, “DP, DP, you can’t hide, you sign off on genocide.”

Wang, a sophomore, said although she had some friends involved in the encampment and also knew counterprotesters, she saw her reporter-self and her student-self as “almost like two different people.”

“I told them, ‘When I’m reporting, it might be misconstrued if we were chatting really friendly and I have my press badge on and they had a keffiyeh on,’” Wang said. “To all my friends I’m like, ‘Hey, I’m at work.’”

Young would sometimes tell friends with strong opinions, “Hey, go to DP.com and read what we’re putting out.”

The night before Philadelphia police arrived to dismantle the encampment on May 10, Bartlett went to the library. A history major who is also minoring in journalism, she had dueling motivations.

“I wanted to keep an eye on things, but the primary reason I was here was I had a paper to write,” she said. Keyed up by days of nonstop reporting, Bartlett couldn’t focus on researching Penn’s historic entanglements with slavery for her history seminar. She found herself instead reading articles about protest coverage elsewhere in the country.

Around 4:30 in the morning, Penn security swept the library and kicked everyone out, Bartlett said. She decamped to the front steps, shielded from the rain by the library awning, directly across from the encampment.

Young had set his alarm to wake him up every hour throughout the night to check for news updates (”Ethan is different,” Wang joked). He returned to the encampment before sunrise. Soon he heard a long whistle, followed by the arrival of more than a hundred Philadelphia and Penn police.

“That’s go mode,” Young said. Bartlett dropped her notes and laptop on the steps and began writing the first live update on her phone.

The paper’s editor-in-chief, Jared Mitovich, called Wang, who was asleep in her dorm room.

“It’s happening,” Mitovich said. Wang ran out the door.

Throughout the day, the DP reported on the arrests of the protesters, including nine Penn students. They documented police escorting faculty off campus, wrote about the faculty Senate chair resigning in protest, and produced live coverage during a nighttime march through West Philadelphia.

They are still reckoning with what the experience meant, as people and as journalists.

“I think as students, I want to say, we don’t like seeing people getting arrested on campus in general,” Wang said slowly, looking to Young and Bartlett to see if they agreed, during a recent interview. She seemed to be hashing out the position in real time. “It’s a little disorienting, as a student.”

The academic year is now over. Bartlett just turned in her final paper (this one on the history of baseball). The College Green remains fenced off to the public. Israel’s war in Gaza grinds on.

“As Penn quiets down for the summer, we will to some extent, as well,” said Young, who is a summer news editor for the DP. “But also we will be on the lookout for breaking news, long form, opinion — anything that comes.”

Staff writer Beatrice Forman contributed to this article.