http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/10/us/university-missouri-protesters-block-journalists-press-freedom.html
"The first amendment protects your right to be here and mine." ~ the journalist.
As pithy as that is... its not true. Journalists have no extra protections when it comes to gathering information. The government isn't allowed to stop you from publishing information once you have it, but anyone can show you the door if you trespass or otherwise break the law gathering said information.
Of course it wasn't private property, so ordinary citizens trying to use force to remove him would be a (fairly minor) crime. But not because of the first amendment, just because that's a crime normally. Kind of embarrassing that a journalist of all people doesn't understand how freedom of speech works.
It can be argued to be a First Amendment violation that staff at a state university were attempting to silence the media in a public space with physical force.
No... no it couldn't. Again, taking pictures isn't a form of expression.
State employees preventing the press from reporting on an issue in public is a First Amendment issue.
No it isn't. And there's no such thing as a "first amendment issue", its a violation or it isn't.
First of all, these aren't active duty cops we're talking about here. State schools are already fairly independent from the rest of the government in practice, these are low level employees, and they were off the job when this happened. Furthermore, they never claimed to have any legal authority, nor did they make their position relevant in any way. To treat them as representatives of the government here would be stretching the spirit of the law past its breaking point.
Second of all... the first amendment doesn't protect journalists who are taking pictures. It, in fact, doesn't protect ANYONE who is taking pictures, because that is not speech. I don't know why I have to keep repeating this. A journalist isn't entitled to get quotes, they aren't entitled to get an interview, they aren't entitled to pictures or video or soundbites or anything. That's not what freedom of the press means; it means that once they have those things, the government can't stop them from publishing them. Now, stopping them from getting those things can be (and in this case, is) a crime. But for reasons that have nothing to do with the first amendment.