Jim Rodenbush from the IU website
If you missed Part I, you can link to it here.
Indiana University’s Media School fired Indiana Daily Student media adviser Jim Rodenbush after he wouldn’t censor the students and then cut the print publication entirely. The story continues to unfold, and we’ll keep you apprised of anything we learn. In the meantime, it seemed like a good idea to interview the man himself at length to understand his current situation.
Rodenbush was nice enough to spend his layover at the airport on the phone with us, talking about his experiences with the IU Media School. He also talked about what he sees next for himself and what he hopes will be next for his students.
Below is part two of a transcription of our Q and A, with edits to the material to tighten and clarify parts of our discussion, as well as make more sense of my questions, which somehow Rodenbush understood among the many Midwestern “Yeah… Yeah… No…” interjections I put in there.
Dean David Tolchinsky, who one source called “clueless” in his understanding of journalism and the First Amendment.
You mentioned Dean David Tolchinsky earlier and I know I’ve said a lot about him over the past year here. I’ve heard from folks that he is “clueless” when it comes to journalism and doesn’t know squat about important things like the First Amendment. What’s your take on all that?
JIM RODENBUSH: “The best ‘glass-half-full response’ that I can give to this is, David does not come with a journalism background. If he has learned anything about journalism in the last two years, I would say that he’s learned it in tiny baby steps, and most of the responsibility related to student media and journalism, he’s farmed out to other people.
Galen Clavio, seen here fronting a 1980s Night Ranger cover band, was Rodenbush’s direct supervisor for most of the past year.
And that brings me to my next question. It’s my understanding that Associate Dean Galen Clavio has been the main guy who is pushing the ideas about changing student media at IU and he’s the one trying to crank out whatever his version of journalism should be at the IDS. What’s the front page on this guy in relation to this whole situation?
JIM RODENBUSH: “A lot of this responsibility was put on this plate in his role as associate dean. He was made my direct supervisor, basically from October to October, and before the public media guy came in. He has made himself a presence in what I guess you could call the general IU media community, right? He’s in the trenches, he’s producing content, he’s someone who can present himself as someone who is in the know, but his background is also not journalism. His background is media production. His background is sports media. He’s really has made himself a face in the podcasting world, which is great, but that’s you giving your opinion about football. There’s no journalism background to that.”
“In my interactions with him, there wasn’t much of an interest in the journalism side of things because of the liability and the trouble it causes. So, many of his ideas were leaning into production, leaning into background work, and leaning into turning out people that would produce things like Big 10 Network shows, people that would set up the latest podcast. And, yes, these are viable career opportunities. I don’t want to diminish the things that are on the production side of things, but that being said, Galen doesn’t have the background or the interest in growing anything related to real reporting. There’s no background and there’s no interest in helping to grow that at all.”
Obviously, you’ve gotten a ton of attention because of this situation. With everyone reaching out to you now, what is the general vibe of their comments?
JIM RODENBUSH: “I’ve worked at four different universities over 15 years, so I I’m hearing from students and from former colleagues I haven’t talked to him forever. That’s the kind of thing that this situation has generated. Everything has been 100% supportive. I haven’t received a single negative message. Every one of them has been, ‘Thank you for standing up for journalism principles.’ A lot of them have been very complimentary on the example that’s being set for students. Every one of them is saying they’re very sorry that this happened to me, but that I did the right thing.”
Given everything that’s happening now, what do you think we are looking at, as far as the IDS and as far as IU is concerned from a reputation standpoint?
JIM RODENBUSH: “You can quote me hard on this one: The IDS was a dream job. It was a dream destination, because it had, it had such a glowing reputation. I felt like I had landed in the big leagues by getting this position. This was a big deal. And this is a big deal to the point where my wife and I had talked about this being our final landing spot. So, this is the dream position where I had expected to spend the rest of my working career. But now, I could not, in good conscience, recommend this position to anyone, for all the reasons that are out there right now.”
“That being said, I do believe from an editorial content standpoint, I know that the kids are going to do everything they possibly can to keep this going as long as they can. And so from a journalism reputation standpoint, I believe that it’s going to hold on as long as it can possibly hold on, but it’s going to get worse, right? It has to. And so it’s just difficult. I don’t know where this goes, and I feel bad for the people that are left behind to continue to try to make this work.”
What do you want for the kids at the paper going forward? From your perspective, if the kids could make something happen that would make you say, “Yeah, I feel good for the kids,” what would that be? Is it you back on the job at the IDS? Is it people leaving them alone? Is it Mark Cuban buying the IDS and having “news boys” run all over campus? What’s the best-case situation in your mind?.
JIM RODENBUSH: “It’s so weird, because they should be something that the university should (promote) a lot. With all due respect to my colleagues, the IDS is among the best student media organizations in the country. It’s just full of talented kids, inspiring kids and they’re doing everything right. My hope for them is that there is at least some version of support and advocacy going forward, so that the ones that want to continue to do the work are able to do so.”
“A best-case scenario would be to give the kids a seat at the table. All these decisions are being made absent of input from me, absent of input from the professional staff, but definitely absence of input from the students, and they’re the ones that have to implement things. Let them make decisions. You know they’re going to operate in the best interest of the organization, if you let them.”
OK, what about for you? Where do you go next?
JIM RODENBUSH: “I’m happily married forever to the world’s most compassionate human being, and she has been incredible in the last 48 hours. I have a daughter that goes to IU I have another son who’s about to go to college, and then I have another son who is graduated high school, but it’s on a different path. So there’s a family structure there.”
“Moving forward, I just don’t really know. I’ve allowed myself a couple days to take a beat. I’m going to allow myself a couple more days to enjoy being around everybody, and then I’ve got to figure out what’s next. I hope to continue and in the media world, and I hope to continue in some version of the college level. So I get back home on Sunday and, Monday, I really have to wake up and say, ‘OK, what am I doing?’”
If I were to hand you the microphone and let you say anything you want to say about anything at all, what do you want people to know?
JIM RODENBUSH: “In a situation like this, people reach out, and they’re like, ‘I’m so sorry to hear about what’s going on to on you and please let me know if you need anything.’ I’ve been on the other end of that before, but this is the first time I’ve been on this side of the situation and it’s really helpful to know that people are thinking about you. So much the work that you do is in a bubble, and a lot of the times you don’t hear feedback unless somebody’s yelling at you. And you have all these relationships with students, and you think that you’re doing right by them, and you think that you’re doing right by journalism, but you just don’t know.”
“And then you have a situation like this, where people are telling you what you meant to them, and that’s — Jesus, I’m getting emotional — that’s been a real positive part of all this. All of these people are reaching out — and I swear I’ll respond to everybody – and it means so much because you know you’re not totally alone in this process. You realize that your work with these people was real, and it did matter.”
