(CNN) A swarm of journalists on social media descended this week on editors of The Daily Northwestern. The student journalists exhaustively covered protests of an on-campus appearance by former Attorney General Jeff Sessions -- taking photos of students being shoved by officers, using social media to track down protestors and get their side of the story.

Sharif Durhams

Those actions are journalism, as disruptive as it can be to those whose lives are impacted by it. And the student journalists apologized for committing it, publishing on their newspaper's website a detailed statement of regret.

In doing so, they made a mistake. Their apology was an overreaction. Since the Northwestern students are at one of the country's most prestigious journalism schools, I'll assume there are an adequate number of professors and advisers to tell them they misstepped without alumni tweeting their embarrassment and other woe-is-the-profession journalists piling on.

As much as the students' apology went too far, so also have the journalists who have called them out for it. Their righteous outrage misses an important point: The Northwestern students will learn from the mistake. Their critics should focus more on what the students were trying to address -- a lack of attention to the values of minimizing harm, covering communities with empathy and having diverse leadership in newsrooms that pervades our industry.

The editors' misstep occurred after they faced pressure from students from marginalized groups who argued that photos of them being held down by police were traumatizing and that texting students and asking them to comment on the melee was also traumatizing.