Editor’s Note: This content reflects the views of the individual author only and does not represent a stance taken by The Collegian or its editorial board.

The concluding week of the 2023 spring semester on Colorado State University’s campus was anything but quiet in preparation for finals.

Fueled by national inaction over the Israel-Hamas war, protests exploded nationwide across college campuses. Everyone at CSU, especially those of us in student media, held their breath, waiting to see what was going to happen as signs warning that camping was considered trespassing were hammered into lawns around The Plaza, and messages from the administration outlining how to acceptably protest were emailed to the university community.

Obviously, this was not the first time we at The Collegian were prepped for the possibility of a protest. Our staff spent extensive time last year covering the protests surrounding the Israel-Hamas war. In October, we reported both on a vigil for Israel and some of the very first protests for Palestine in Fort Collins. We sent reporters to cover protests at the Colorado State Capitol and protests surrounding the Jewish National Fund’s conference in Denver in December because we believe in the importance of communication surrounding freedom of speech.

We did our best to make it to every protest in Fort Collins and were there with a camera and a reporter’s notebook for everyone on CSU’s campus.

Protests are a uniquely difficult thing to cover and — something every reporter who has covered a protest will say — are incomparable to any other reporting experience. There’s a rare sort of power subscribed to standing in the middle of so much human energy and being calm. We exist between the reality of our surroundings and the potential of our coverage.

The week of May 1, we experienced daily protests outside of the Lory Student Center by the NoCo Liberation Coalition and Students for Justice in Palestine, come rain or shine. Protests even moved into the senate chambers of the Associated Students of CSU. The protesters abided by university policy, and despite law enforcement presence for each protest and a handful of counter protests, rules were followed, and nothing escalated.

Other college campuses did not have that experience, with arrests and violence erupting. Student press was, in many instances, the only reliable news source in the thick of these protests.

We completed our coverage quietly and respectfully and watched the news that week, not to learn about the protests on other campuses but to learn about the student journalists who were right there experiencing it. As journalists, our hearts and strength went out to them.

At the University of California, Los Angeles, reporters from the Daily Bruin were gassed and assaulted. At California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, three student journalists were arrested during coverage.

Stories of student journalists’ bravery erupted, from California to Boston. Coverage that came out of these protests was accurate, unbiased and thorough. These students, up all night fighting through police lines demolishing camps, were also studying for finals. They were outpacing national news outlets for access to these protests, and they were being detained and assaulted.

These students completed their coverage and went home for the summer. Despite the brief spotlight of national attention placed on their efforts, life will go back to normal for them. They’ll go to class. They’ll go to their newsrooms. They’ll regroup, restart and, undoubtedly, look around their campuses and ask, “What’s next?” because that’s what we all do.

As editor in chief, I treated protest coverage last year as a training method for reporters who were looking to gain more experience in difficult situations because I trusted both the CSU community in voicing their beliefs and the CSU Police Department to respect the First Amendment. It is a luxury that we were able to do so and a luxury that I never felt unsafe either covering a protest or sending a staffer to cover a protest.

The student journalists at the front of some of the most violent campus protests in May did not have the luxury of a learning experience, having to defend both their right to coverage and themselves. For their bravery and talent, they are the real heroes.

Reach Allie Seibel at editor@collegian.com or on Twitter @allie_seibel_.