What a difference a week makes.

When student protesters at the University of Missouri earlier this month barred the media from covering their demonstration on the university's public-space quad, the liberal press expressed outrage.

But when just about a week later, on Nov. 19, student protesters at Smith College barred the media from covering their sympathy demonstration for the Mizzou protesters, the liberal press expressed…nothing much.

Here's a news account of the goings-on at the elite women's college in Northampton, Mass.:

In an effort to create a safe space free from potential insensitivity from the news media, activists at Smith College barred reporters from covering a sit-in Wednesday that drew 300 to 500 students….

The activists' goal was to establish a place where students — prioritizing students of color and black students — could share their thoughts, feelings, poems and songs related to a rash of racially charged episodes this fall at Mizzou, as well as personal experiences of racism.

An event that draws so many people, especially one that concerns a topic of magnitude such as civil rights, is customarily covered by media outlets. But reporters who arrived at the sit-in were met with a clear message: Keep out.

Alyssa Mata-Flores, a 21-year-old Smith College senior and one of the sit-in's organizers, explained that the rule was born from "the way that media has historically painted radical black movements as violent and aggressive."

"We are asking that any journalists or press that cover our story participate and articulate their solidarity with black students and students of color," she told MassLive in the Student Center Wednesday. "By taking a neutral stance, journalists and media are being complacent in our fight."

Smith organizers said journalists were welcome to cover the event if they agreed to explicitly state they supported the movement in their articles.

Furthermore, the Smith administration went along with the media ban

…Stacey Schmeidel, Smith College director of media relations, said the college supports the activists' ban on media.

Schmeidel went on to say that the college reserves the right to remove reporters from the Student Center because it's a private campus.

It was the first protest in Smith's history to bar media coverage.

Now Smith, as a private institution, is certainly within its rights to bar whomever it pleases from its premises. But it would be nice if some reporters at least raised a few mild criticisms of students insisting that they receive favorable media coverage–or else.