‘We’re Living The News’: Student Journalists Are Owning The College Reopening Story

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Student journalists Anna Pogarcic and Brandon Standley of UNC’s Daily Tar Heel review a recent issue at their offices off campus.

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Students lounge on campus at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The university reported its first coronavirus clusters after a week of in-person classes.

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Freshman Cameron McClure moves out of her UNC dorm with help from her father, David McClure. «When they gave us the option of going home, we were all just like, it’s probably better for us,» she says.

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The Friday, Aug. 21, edition of The Daily Tar Heel. The student-run newspaper broke the news of UNC’s first coronavirus clusters.

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A wall in The Daily Tar Heel’s newsroom is lined with memorable headlines.

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Students move out of UNC dorms after multiple coronavirus clusters forced the university to go online-only.

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Students pack their belongings back into cars at Granville Towers, where one of the first clusters of positive coronavirus cases was reported on Aug. 14.

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«There’s no way I could have stopped this university from opening,» says Maydha Devarajan, a UNC junior who worked for The Daily Tar Heel over the summer. «But I hope I put enough information out there to show that there was a large amount of backlash to this plan before it even took off.»

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The national headlines about UNC may be receding, but the journalists at The Daily Tar Heel still have a big story to cover.

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The national headlines about UNC may be receding, but the journalists at The Daily Tar Heel still have a big story to cover.

Elissa Nadworny/NPR

Sequoia Carillo contributed to this report.