As protests roiled campuses nationwide this year, John Klopotowski launched an AMEJA chapter at the University of California, Berkeley. The campus has a long history of protests and touts its legacy as the home of the Free Speech Movement, which began in 1964. The chapter president and journalism graduate student reflects on the last two tumultuous semesters and explains what motivated him to establish an AMEJA presence at Berkeley.

What was it like studying journalism on a campus also involved in a major international story?

The past year has been a strange one to spend at journalism school. It's often been disorienting. My j-school's administration did not hold any meeting or forum for students until about a month into Israel's attack on Gaza following October 7. In early November, the school held a forum with a well-known opinion columnist who often writes about Israel. Perhaps out of curiosity, or perhaps in an act of reporting, she asked our class about our experience on a college campus during such a “divisive” time. 

I stood up and told the writer about my and my fellow students’ frustration, citing the fact that our journalism school hadn’t held any discussion about Gaza until November 2—and the discussion that had been held was only about verifying open-source information (OSINT), not about the historical, political, or economic context of what we were witnessing. 

There was a moment in late October when it looked like such an event might happen. In fact, I had been in touch with the Dean’s office about coverage of the military campaign and how to talk about it honestly. At one point, I made a comment pointing out common word differences between media coverage in Arabic compared to that in English. “We’re not going to discuss word choice,” is what I was told by an administrator. This event eventually turned into the OSINT discussion, a helpful but tepid conversation. 

After my comment at the November forum with the writer, an administrator who was on stage with the columnist responded to my statement, claiming that there is an inherent problem in discussing topics that sit at the heart of a person’s very identity, or humanity. In other words, as journalists report and write/produce, they should not put others in a position to defend their very nature as a human being. I am hoping that a piece I’m working on about this bizarre experience will be coming out soon in The Markaz Review. 

I became a journalist because I’ve seen people—often my family and friends—who have been forced to defend their humanity. Indeed, those who have been systematically stripped of their humanity for whatever political reasons are constantly required to argue that they are, indeed, human. If journalists neglected stories with characters who are being dehumanized, we would fail to do our jobs. And is what I mean that the past year being disorienting—one of the most consequential and important stories of not just the year, but our careers/lives, has been so thoroughly eschewed by a prominent journalism school. If not for some wonderful students and professors, I would have spent no more than a month in the profession before becoming fully disheartened.

How did you cover the protests at Berkeley and what challenges did you encounter? 

The atmosphere at the school was a major hurdle for students interested in covering the protests, either for class or freelancing; it didn’t give us encouragement to pitch our pieces to various outlets. Nonetheless, some students covered the encampments and general protests. Specifically, my friend and fellow student, Hussain Khan, reported on the encampment for KQED and had a story about Palestinian students on KALX. Another student, Coral Murphy Marcos, had pieces run in the New York Times and The Guardian. I had a piece run in a local outlet about Oakland, CA’s Yemeni population, the idea for which started as the US began bombing Yemen after the Houthi blockade in the Red Sea. Other students and AMEJA members, Zane Karram and Isabella Marzban, each produced short films about protests in the fall of last year. They were both wonderful and gave a sense of the personalities in the Bay Area dedicated to the Palestinian cause, and how they go about organizing themselves. Unfortunately, the films aren’t currently available for the public, but if they are published online, I’ll send around links. 

AMEJA Berkeley Chapter President John Klopotowski speaking at a conference on Armenian rugs.

Why did you feel it imperative to launch an AMEJA chapter at Berkeley?

Given everything I mentioned above, it quickly became apparent to me and my fellow students with Middle Eastern roots that Berkeley’s j-school needed an AMEJA chapter; we organized ourselves as the administration failed to meet basic requests to have public meetings/events about Gaza. We all felt that we needed an open space, whether it be to brainstorm story ideas, talk about current events, and complain about/appreciate coverage of the destruction of Gaza. In the fall, we’re hoping to hold more events for the general student body, and potentially organize a class about responsible reporting on the Middle East that would be offered for future students. One benefit of Berkeley’s 2-year program is that we can take time to grow the chapter and make sure it is healthy before we graduate in 2025.

Beyond the protests, what issues and happenings on campus do you think warrant coverage and fascinate you?

Berkeley is a fascinating place and there are stories cropping up everyday. One important story, also covered by Isabella, Zane, and a number of other students, is People’s Park—a park over which there have been numerous protests; the University has long been planning to build housing on top of the land, despite its status as an historical and cultural landmark. Additionally, graduate students are routinely being underpaid and overworked, so their plight is ripe for more coverage. The University’s Chancellor, Carol Christ, is retiring at the end of this month. She was the first female chancellor of the University. Her tenure has been full of infrastructural development. Finally, perhaps my favorite story is that the University’s clock tower is home to a family of falcons, which welcomed some babies this spring. There’s a live webcam for those interested.