Student Media

Catching up on the Indiana Daily Student censorship situation

I made the mistake of trying to be proactive on Monday, so when my doctor asked, “Would you like your flu and pneumonia vaccines?” I said, “Sure, why not?”

Three straight days of nothing but the shakes and 14-hour sleeping fits later, I’m relatively functional and ready to try to catch everybody up on what’s been going on with the IU Media School, the Indiana Daily Student and the censorship of the student media in Bloomington…

 

JOURNALISM KIDS DO BETTER: The title of that famous book rings so true when it comes to this situation. The students at the IDS were prohibited from printing their homecoming issue, as the IU Media School didn’t want “news” in it.

Well, that wasn’t going to work…

The students took to the web and posted the entire issue you weren’t supposed to see here and promoted the hell out of it.

If the school was afraid that regular news was going to make the homecoming issue seem “icky” for the alumni coming home to IU, they probably pooped in their knickers when they saw this:

 

YOU MESS WITH ONE OF US, YOU MESS WITH ALL OF US:  One of the things that IU Media School Dean David Tolchinsky has yet to fully understand is that student media is a family. We might pick on each other or battle it out for awards among ourselves, but when someone from the outside picks on one of us, they have to deal with all of us.

This sense of camaraderie was perfectly captured in the Purdue Exponent’s reaction to this situation:

In short, not only were there papers on the stands, they came from the folks in West Lafayette. And, of course, this drew even more attention to the situation from the outside… 

If, as fired adviser Jim Rodenbush said, Tolchinsky is learning about how media works in “baby steps,” he better get a faster baby because the student media is kicking his rear all over the place.

 

FROM THE “FOXES TO STUDY IMPROVEMENTS TO HEN HOUSE SECURITY” DEPARTMENT: Tolchinsky popped his head out of his burrow on Monday and apparently saw his shadow, thus revealing six more weeks of catching grief over this.

Therefore, he released the following statement about his intention to create a task force to study the situation:

Indiana University Media School Dean Dave Tolchinsky announced today the formation of a Task Force on the Editorial Independence and Financial Sustainability of the Indiana Daily Student (IDS)/Student Media. The new initiative will bring together faculty, staff, students, and alumni to develop recommendations ensuring both the editorial independence and financial sustainability of student media at IU.

The task force, to be appointed in the coming weeks, will build on prior work—including the 2024 ad hoc committee’s “Proposal for Reimagining and Reinvesting in Student Media at IU.” Its charge will extend beyond that report to develop recommendations on the intersection of editorial and business operations as IU’s student media organizations progress toward financial sustainability.

So, to review, the guy who just fired the adviser, cut print and censored the student newspaper is building a committee to study those issues at IU.

The jokes just seem to write themselves at this point, but to a lot of us, this is no laughing matter.

IT’S ALL FUN AND GAMES UNTIL THE LAWYERS GET INVOLVED: One of the best things about student media is that the folks here have a lot of what I call “Big Friends.” It’s basically like life in grade school or high school: Some twerp comes along and picks on a perceived weaker kid, only to find out that the kid has a really big friend, ready to come to their defense and kick the crap out of said twerp.

Enter the Student Press Law Center.

SPLC’s is “devoted exclusively to defending and advancing the free press rights of student journalists. For more than 50 years, we’ve helped students and their educators navigate the law, strengthen their reporting and stand up for press freedom.”  This has been a lifesaver for an infinite number of student journalists and student media outlets.

The SPLC provided us with a pro-bono lawyer for nearly 18 months when we were fighting to get records released about a professor who was removed from his classroom at UWO. They also gave us legal representation in Indiana when the university was trying to keep public documents private. They even rattled the chain of the little… um… student government people out here who tried to get me fired.

If you talk to anyone who has been in student media for more than 20 minutes, it’s likely they have a “SPLC saved my bacon” story to tell.

SPLC folks are like a dog with a Frisbee. They don’t let go. If you are getting a lot of attention from SPLC, it means you’re really in the wrong. So, what do you think it means when SPLC creates an entire section of its website dedicated to tracking and cataloging the stupidity of your media school?

Yeah, not good.

In addition, the students at the IDS are working with an attorney from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, who has issued a demand letter to Tolchinsky and his merry men, stating the school needs to start acting right: 

An attorney from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press representing IDS co-Editors-in-Chief Mia Hilkowitz and Andrew Miller demanded Media School administrators reverse course in their “unconstitutional” censorship of the Indiana Daily Student in a letter sent Monday.

The letter, penned by RCFP attorney Kristopher Cundiff, was sent to Indiana University President Pamela Whitten, Chancellor David Reingold, Media School Dean David Tolchinsky and other Media School leadership. It addresses IU’s firing of Director of Student Media Jim Rodenbush and the immediate cut to the IDS print editions hours after his termination.

The students have said they would prefer not to sue, although I’d argue these people are unlikely to back off unless legally forced to do so. Everything to this point seems to suggest they have no idea what they’re doing in this realm.

 

 

“You realize that your work with these people was real, and it did matter.” A Q and A With Fired Indiana Daily Student Media Adviser Jim Rodenbush (Part II)

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.”

“This was never about money, and I think that their actions prove it.” A Q and A With Fired Indiana Daily Student Media Adviser Jim Rodenbush (Part I)

Jim Rodenbush from the IU website

In the span of one week, the Indiana University attempted to censor the Indiana Daily Student newspaper, fired student media adviser Jim Rodenbush for not enforcing the censorship and killed the IDS’s print publications when it was clear the students would not yield.

The story of this has blown up beyond the confines of Bloomington, with The New York Times, NBC News, The Guardian and others following the situation. The Indiana media, including the Indy Star, and WTHR keeping track of things as well.

Rodenbush was nice enough to have about a 45-minute chat during an airport layover, as he was flying to Washington, D.C. for the college media convention MediaFest25. Instead of hearing ABOUT Rodenbush, we thought it would be better to hear FROM Rodenbush, allowing him to walk everyone through what he has gone through this week.

Below is part one 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.

I don’t even know where the hell to start, I’ll be real honest with you, but can you give me a sense of what the last week has been like? Start me off with (Monday), the day before you got fired.

JIM RODENBUSH: “Literally, nothing happened on Monday. Not a word about anything.”

“It was Tuesday morning that I went to go get my IU fleet vehicle because I was going to drive to DC, my reservation was still active, and so I’m like, ‘Well, that’s good.’ So then I get to work, and then I learned about the email that my editors had sent, either like the night before or that day. And I didn’t actually see the email, but my general understanding was it was one of those, like, ‘Hey, we know what you’re wanting us to do. We have a print publication coming up this week. We’d kind of like for you to roll that back.’”

“So, I knew that that email had been sent, so I was thinking, I’m going to email my supervisor, the Director of Public Media, and just remind him that I’m going to be out of town the rest of the week. I sent that email to him, and then I did, just did a bunch of things to get ready to not be in the office. Around 12:30, I got an email from a human resources representative at the IU level, telling me that I needed to be in a meeting with her and (Dean) David (Tolchinsky) at 4:30 that afternoon.”

“And I wish I had connected the dots. I swear to you that, in my brain, the idea (of being fired) was a possibility. But I wasn’t locked into that, because I had literally just learned about the editors’ email. Every time, the IDS editors said anything to anybody upstairs, I had to go into a meeting to explain journalism to them. So, I just thought that maybe this whole, ‘We need you to roll this back, or else,’ email the students sent led to this situation escalating.”

“But I was wrong.”

“I did reply to the human resources person asking for clarification that maybe, could you let me know about an agenda? Could you maybe let me know what’s going on so I could be prepared? And she wrote back that David had concerns he wanted to share. So, I knew I wasn’t going to get an answer, but that’s standard reply. So, I just continue getting ready to leave town because I was scheduled to drive to Washington (Wednesday) morning.”

“When 4:30 came, I went to the meeting, and I made small talk with the HR representative. I saw that she was from the St Louis area, so we talked St Louis for a couple minutes, and then David showed up, and he began with, ‘This is going to be an uncomfortable meeting.’ Then he just read from the termination letter. That’s it. He just read from the termination letter.”

“When he was done, my response was, ‘Is that it?’ And then the human resources person, on the spot, collected my keys, collected my IU ID, told me I had to be escorted from the building and that my personal belongings would be sent to me. She also said that I needed also hand over my IU laptop, but my IU laptop was at home because I was packed to leave. So, I had I had to drive in my IU rental that I already picked up over to my apartment to pick up the laptop and then drive back to campus to give this HR representative my laptop and the IU rental keys.”

 

Given the way you were fired and then removed from campus, were you also given any ultimatum about not talking to the kids at the IDS or any of the staff? Were you told not to reach out or were the kids told to shun you or anything?

JIM RODENBUSH: “I wasn’t given any, ‘Stay away from campus’ statement. I wasn’t getting any ‘Don’t talk to anyone’ thing. I have a daughter who is an IU student, so the whole time I’m processing being fired, I was in the back of my brain thinking, ‘If you tell me I can’t talk to students, that might be a little weird.’ But there was (no demand regarding communication). I have been in communication with the students, and the professional staff. I stayed in touch with everybody.”

“What’s funny is that I went back on campus and the public media outlet called me for an interview, and they said they wanted to put me on camera. And I said to the guy, ‘You want me to go into the into the TV building?’ And they’re like, ‘Yeah!’ I’m like, ‘Are you sure?’ They were like, ‘Yeah! If they say anything to us, we’ll just pitch a fit.’”

 

The day after you get fired, the second shoe drops and the Media School folks announce that they’re killing the print edition. Every indication I’ve gotten from anything I’ve seen is that the special print editions were making money, so what does this decision really say about the school’s motives here?

JIM RODENBUSH: “This proves that this was never about money, because you have effectively killed a massive amount of revenue-generating opportunities at this time. You’ve also done severe damage to the IDS’s relationship with the housing community, a big collective of advertisers. So much of my advertising director’s foothold that he has made here has to do with some of the print products that are produced. And so, you have made his job both harder and easier in a weird way. You just eliminated half of the half of his work. That’s the easier part. The harder part is you have eliminated massive revenue opportunities. So, this was never about money, and I think that their actions prove it.”

 

I still can’t figure out why the school wanted to do all of this to the IDS. I never got a sense that there was a particular like moment of, “Well, you guys ran X story, so we’re coming after you.” It just kind of seemed like there was this overwhelming push to get rid of true reporting overall. Am I reading this situation right?

JIM RODENBUSH: “I was not aware of any particular story that caused this situation to accelerate. We had an update this semester on (accusations that the IU president plagiarized parts of her doctoral dissertation). The story that ran was really good, but it was nothing more than kind of an update on where we are right now. It wasn’t anything particularly scandalous or something that people didn’t know. Otherwise, I’m not aware of anything problematic.”

“Almost every media outlet is asking a version of this question because it’s rational. The immediate thought is, ‘What are they trying to squash?’ Or ‘What story are they trying to prevent from coming out?’ And there’s nothing. This just appears to be about the media school not wanting traditional newspapers on the newsstands anymore.”

 

Maybe my brain is going in the wrong direction, but by saying, “Get rid of the print edition,” the Media School basically made it so that everything is digital and their actions are drawing way more attention than anything that could run in the print publication. I guess the simple question is:  What is their beef with print? 

JIM RODENBUSH: “I would be speculating, because through all of this, I’ve never been in these meetings. I told people that a lot of my job toward the end was middle management. I simply took orders from the media school administration and did what I could do with them. I was not in the room when these things were being talked about.”

“So I’m lacking even some sort of explanation as to the motivation behind this. The general idea has just been, ‘We need to transform to digital, and we need to eliminate prints, and we need to coincide with the real world.’ That’s been the message, and that’s hard to take, because, of course, newspapers are still being printed, and we had already transformed the digital first.”

“Newspapers are a lot like malls. The general idea is that malls are dead, but if you go to certain communities, the malls thriving. It’s not a black and white kind of thing. And when it comes to the printed newspaper, it all depends on your community, and it all depends on your audience.”

“We were down to a weekly paper, but we still had an audience for that. We still had pickup rates. We still had a strong print audience, particularly in the general business area that’s right off campus. We couldn’t keep the paper on the stands. So, them saying, ‘You must get rid of print’ was a sweeping order that still doesn’t make any sense to me, because if it’s about money, then why would you halve your revenue?”

 

In looking back to the discussions we had last year, when the school was launching its media plan, I remember several of the folks involved being on a radio show, talking about money. Your editor said, “It costs us 60 grand to print and we’re making 90 grand on the deal, so we’re making money,” something (an administrator) disputed without being able to support his disagreement. Tell me, based on your experience, was the paper was making money as a standalone product? 

JIM RODENBUSH: The paper alone as a standalone product, debits and credits, looking at a spreadsheet, it’s in the black. The cuts that we made, I’m comfortable saying that the savings we actually realized from the spring was possibly $20,000 by printing seven times instead of weekly.”

 

By cutting print, they cut the revenue, but not all of the costs associated with running the whole operation. I mean, you still have expenses like payroll, web stuff, travel and all that. I guess the question then becomes, what other revenue streams does the IDS have that will help meet all those expenses?

JIM RODENBUSH: “You’ve got professional staff there that are working, that are still getting paid, and they’re still getting benefits. You’ve got the students still getting paid. So, salary is part of the process. And as everyone with experience knows, you don’t sell digital advertising at the same rates that you do print advertising. I don’t see an immediate replacement for what amounts to half of the revenue.”

“The blanket response has always been, ‘Think innovatively! Think new ways! Think enterprise!’ and that’s great to say, but in in reality, you’re still operating in Bloomington, Indiana.  It is a wonderful town, but it’s still a midsized town in southern Indiana. There’s only so much money available there and (the ad manager) has done a wonderful job in the advertising community, building relationships all by himself, and making more money than I would ever would have expected. But now, he can only sell a certain thing, and there are going to be people that won’t be interested in that. So, he’s really been given a difficult task at this point. And you can piecemeal some things that could bring in additional money but cutting print? That was a tremendous amount of money that you just let walk away.”

“A homecoming section that was supposed to print today was sold, and so, they’re going to have to refund people. It’s not just this issue, but the other three that were scheduled for this year. We have health and religious directories in these printed products, and these people aren’t going to want to go online, so all these things are going to have to be refunded.”

 

NEXT: Part II

An Open Letter to The IU Media School: Please spare us your bullshit and leave the Indiana Daily Student alone

The top of the IDS’s letter explaining how the university killed print.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: Sage has always asked me to avoid any “unnecessary cursing” on the blog, as it tends to offend the sensibilities of some delicate readers. I promised I’d only use “necessary cursing,” and today it’s called for. Sorry, guys.)

Dear Dean David Tolchinsky and the rest of the administration at the IU Media School,

You have made it clear over the past several years, and even more so over the past few days, that you have absolutely no idea how journalism, student media or the First Amendment work, or that you don’t care about these things.

Either way, nobody is buying your bullshit anymore.

The decision to demand students not print news in the Homecoming edition, then fire adviser Jim Rodenbush when he would not force this upon students and then kill all printing 24 hours later in response to the editors’ concerns has drawn negative attention from all corners of the country. The Student Press Law Center and Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression both condemned your actions. News outlets across the state and beyond are digging into this situation. Even the alumni aren’t happy.

Free press and editorial freedom can’t be a “when we feel like it” thing, or else you are supporting neither a free press nor any editorial freedom. I’m not even sure your chancellor gets this, based on his most recent statement:

“Indiana University Bloomington is firmly committed to the free expression and editorial independence of student media,” IU Bloomington Chancellor David Reingold said in a statement. “The university has not and will not interfere with their editorial judgment.”

“In support of the Media School and implementation of their Action Plan, the campus is completing the shift from print to digital effective this week,” he continued. “To be clear, the campus’ decision concerns the medium of distribution, not editorial content. All editorial decisions have and will continue to rest solely with the leadership of IDS and all IU student media. We uphold the right of student journalists to pursue stories freely and without interference.”

OK, but see, you all actually DID interfere with editorial judgment when the powers-that-be demanded that no news content be placed into the homecoming edition. Furthermore, you made it clear that you WERE trying to censor by having two editions: One on campus for the alumni that was filled with only unicorns and rainbows and Homecoming parades, and another one for the city that would be allowed to wrap a news section around it.

The IDS quotes Assistant Dean Ron McFall essentially saying that the school knew this was censorship and interference:

“How do we frame that, you know, in a way that’s not seen as censorship?” Ron McFall, assistant dean of strategy and administration at the Media School, asked in that meeting.

And Dave, you can’t throw this guy under the bus with a “poor choice of words” or “one bad apple” thing, given what people know about you and your approach to student media. People at IU know that you are “clueless” about the First Amendment and you “don’t know the first thing about journalism,” to quote a non-student source close to the IU situation.

A source also relayed a story about one of your first encounters with the IDS upon your appointment as dean. The paper had written an editorial that had ruffled some feathers and you were confused about your power over the situation.

“He wanted to know why he couldn’t just make them apologize,” the source said.

You have tried your damnedest to frame this issue as one of finance, and finance alone, because this is the best defense you have against your indefensible actions. Even if the IDS students and the rest of us who understand how media works were to grant you this premise, which we don’t, dozens of examples of censorship through financial means exist in student media. Trust me, I’ve researched this a bit.

If money were the motivating factor, there would be no reason for killing off ALL print editions, including those special ones you were so excited to force the kids to produce. In their letter from the editors, Mia Hilkowitz and Andrew Miller explained that you now refuse to let them publish the homecoming edition, which fit the bill of what say you wanted, namely a special issue that turns a sizeable profit.

In addition, the editors have pointed out that the three issues that the IDS produced to this point have turned a five-figure profit, that the IDS has advertising contracts for future publications and has contracts for advertising to be placed on public-facing news stands where the print edition is distributed.

Those things all sound like money to me, and any reasonable human being who understands how money works. And if you’re worried about money, maybe you shouldn’t piss off IU alumnus billionaire and donor Mark Cuban, who also is not happy about this situation.

The problem with all of this is that you can’t un-ring the bell. Bringing Rodenbush back or opening the door to printing won’t solve the underlying problem: A complete lack of trust between the IDS and this administration. The students aren’t stupid, so they know that anything you do right now will only be to shut people like me up for the moment. Once you feel we’ve moved on and the outrage has died down, you’ll pull another stunt like this and the cycle will start all over again.

The only solution is the simplest one: Quit. Leave. Go away.

And take your band of merry administrators with you, who apparently have no interest in actual journalism and actually have “neutered the reporting curriculum,” to quote a source. I’m sure you’ll all land on your feet at some nice, private college where they’ll overpay you to keep the kids in line as they write hard-hitting stories about a local dog named “Pooch” that barks at the campus squirrels.

In the mean time, maybe the chancellor can put his money where his mouth is and hire someone capable of restoring the IDS to its previous state as a venerable, formidable journalistic enterprise.

Sincerely,

Vince (a.k.a. The Doctor of Paper)

P.S. – No, I am not angling for your job, Dave. If this letter makes anything clear, I lack the bullshit-osity to be an administrator anywhere.

 

 

IU’s David Tolchinsky kills the print edition of the Indiana Daily Student, is clearly in over his head

THE LEAD: If anyone needed proof that IU Media School Dean David Tolchinsky doesn’t understand how media works, look no further than his Tuesday response to the leadership at the Indiana Daily Student.

In an email pursuant to the students’ explanation of how his demand that the paper run no news in its homecoming edition violated the IDS charter as well as the First Amendment, Tolchinsky decided it was time to kill the print run for the paper:

As you may recall, the Action Plan, which was endorsed by IU Bloomington campus leadership, outlines a shift from print to digital platforms. In support of the Action Plan, the campus has decided to make this shift effective this week, aligning IU with industry trends and offering experiential opportunities  more consistent with digital-first media careers of the future.

The aim is also to uphold the IDS charter—which establishes the IDS as a stand-alone financial entity with complete control over its editorial content—while addressing its structural deficit (subsidized by the campus) that has exceeded several hundred thousand dollars annually.

BACKGROUND: The IDS has been in some rough financial shape over the years, as we noted as far back as 2021. The paper had made significant cuts to the number of editions the paper would do each week and it shrunk other areas to stanch the bleeding.

The school was trying to find a way to make the paper profitable on its own, while also folding it into the school, something the students at the IDS resisted for a number of reasons, including the fear of censorship.

DOES YOU NO HOW MONEY WERKS?: Anyone who has spent any time in student media knows that there exists a balance point between reducing print to reduce cost and cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face. In the case of the IDS, the existence of a print edition guaranteed certain tangible and intangible benefits, which Tolchinsky either doesn’t know about, doesn’t care about or is too dumb to understand.

(A friend told me that Tolchinsky literally “clueless about journalism. He doesn’t know the first thing about journalism.”)

In a 2024 media appearance, then-Co-EIC Jacob Spudich outlined how the costs of the paper at that time were about $60K while it was earning back approximately $90K. The paper earned revenue not just for the ads placed in the publication itself, but also for the advertising placed on the paper’s distribution racks.

Furthermore, the paper edition tended to be more well-read in the broader Bloomington community, helping draw more readers and a more robust audience for potential advertisers. In killing the print edition, the racks go away, so the paper isn’t as visible in the community or as profitable, as the ad revenue associated with those racks will go away as well.

In addition, newspapers don’t sell ads on a day-by-day basis. Most publications sign contracts that spread the ad sales out over a protracted period of time, allowing advertisers to build campaigns of their choosing. The email the IDS editorial leadership sent to Tolchinsky makes this clear:

Our advertisers have already signed on for our fall editions, and we worry that disrupting our print product mid-semester will break our agreements with them. As the IDS aims to address our deficit, changing our print publications — which have already generated nearly $11,000 in profit over three editions this semester — works against this goal and will only further harm us.

So, how much money would the IDS have to fork over to refund any prepaid ads related to issues Tolchinsky now won’t run, and how much would it cost if the advertisers were to sue IU for force of non-performance? Someone call a contract lawyer. I’ll wait.

YOU HIT A NERVE. KEEP GOING: This is what I used to tell student journalists when they found themselves dealing with an angry source or a group of people who were making some noise on a topic they covered. It’s pretty clear that this is happening here:

My favorite, however, was when a friend pointed out that Tolchinsky has set his Twitter/X account to private.

(I requested he add me anyway. I doubt I’ll get through, but given the general level of aptitude he’s shown so far, I wouldn’t be surprised if he DMed me some war plans…)

There will be more time for reflection and updates coming soon.

BREAKING: IU Media School cuts Indiana Daily Student’s entire print edition less than 24 hours after firing the media director

File:Statue of Ernie Pyle at his desk in front of Franklin ...

If Ernie Pyle isn’t spinning in his grave like a frickin’ top, it’s only because he’s actively crawling out of it to come smack the hell out of the administration at the IU Media School.

 

THE LEAD: Less than one day after firing student media director Jim Rodenbush, the administration at IU’s Media School eliminated the print edition of the paper. Rodenbush and the students had pushed back against these actions, stating frequently it would damage the paper’s standing in the community and eliminate revenue opportunities based on physical distribution.

Media School Dean David Tolchinsky sent the order to IDS leadership in an email responding to its appeal that the school not censor the newspaper. And the dean attributed the decision to “the campus.” He has not yet responded to a message for clarification.

A letter from the editors is coming soon.

That email better have gone through a better vetting process than the letter used to fire Rodenbush, or at least have greater restraint in it than the language used in meetings that attempted to censor the students.

When the students publish, we’ll update.

 

“How do we frame that, you know, in a way that’s not seen as censorship?” The IU Media School Fired Student Media Director Jim Rodenbush For Not Censoring Student Media

THE SHORT, SHORT VERSION: David Tolchinsky, dean of the IU Media School, fired student media director Jim Rodenbush for refusing to violate the First Amendment rights of the Indiana Daily Student staffers.

The powers that be in the administrators in the school have been trying to force the IDS into a series of short-sighted moves that would both damn the paper to irrelevancy and undercut the students’ rights to self-governance.  

If you would like to speak up on Rodenbush’s behalf, please email Tolchinsky at: mschdean@iu.edu or call him at: 812-856-4513 to let him know you stand with Rodenbush and the students at the IDS, who could also use your support (ids@indiana.edu).

 

THE LONGER, MORE NUANCED VERSION: Jim Rodenbush, who had been the director of student media at IU since 2018, was summarily fired on Tuesday after he refused to tell the staff of the Indiana Daily Student what they should publish in the homecoming edition.

A formal termination letter, signed by Dean David Tolchinsky, was making the rounds on various media outlets late Tuesday night:

DOCTOR OF PAPER FLASHBACK: The media school spent more than a year trying to force all of its student media outlets to work together, as part of a “converged” model that everyone else in the media world has figured out can’t work. We covered the rigamarole that the IDS was facing around this time last year in our “Hostile Takeover” series. 

Multiple generations of student editors at the IDS were adamantly against this approach, as well as opposing the idea that the free and independent media outlets they ran were going to be kind of “folded into” the media school.

At the time, I’d been in contact with Rodenbush, who was more than polite in his refusal to crap all over this idea, telling me he had faith in the kids and was working within the system to keep the ship afloat.

 

THE STUDENTS SPEAK: If you ever wonder where all the guts in journalism has gone in today’s world of media giants folding like a cheap tent in the rain, look to student journalists.

In a blistering letter on the IDS website, co-EICs Mia Hilkowitz and Andrew Miller explained exactly what happened to Rodenbush, bringing the receipts with them. In pulling quotes from emails and multiple meetings, they outlined the brazen attempts of the administration to force the students to bend to the school’s whims:

Telling us what we can and cannot print is unlawful censorship, established by legal precedent surrounding speech law on public college campuses.

Administrators ignored Rodenbush, who said he would not tell us what to print or not print in our paper. In a meeting Sept. 25 with administrators, he said doing so would be censorship.

“How do we frame that, you know, in a way that’s not seen as censorship?” Ron McFall, assistant dean of strategy and administration at the Media School, asked in that meeting.

Not to put too fine of a point on this, but if you have to ask how to “frame” something so that it doesn’t look like censorship, you’re committing censorship and you damned well know it.

And the students know it too:

IU will attempt to frame this censorship as a step toward a balanced budget. The IDS, along with the Student Press Law Center and Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, see it very differently.

“The Media School’s order limiting the Indiana Daily Student’s print edition to homecoming coverage isn’t a ‘business decision’ — it’s censorship,” the Student Press Law Center said in a statement to the IDS. “This disregards strong First Amendment protections and a long-standing tradition of student editorial independence at Indiana University.”

If administrators disregard our rights as student journalists now, what will stop them from prohibiting the IDS from publishing certain stories on our website and social media, should they deem it appropriate?

 

AN ALUMNUS SPEAKS: In looking for Tolchinsky’s contact information on the IU Media School website, I came across a familiar face in the “Proud Alumni” section of the site.

Andy Hall is a 1982 graduate of the IU journalism program and former editor of the IDS, and we worked together for a bit at the Wisconsin State Journal. The media school gave him a well-deserved write up, where he discussed the foundation of Wisconsin Watch, an investigative journalism outlet here in the Badger State.

I’m not sure if IU full grasps the irony that the Media School is literally championing a free and independent media outlet, founded by a relentless investigative journalist, at the same time it’s trying to undermine the place that helped launch his career.

(SIDE NOTE: Here is my best Andy Hall story. Every year, staffers at the WSJ were assigned a high school graduation to cover as part of their duty to civic journalism. Andy’s assignment coincided with a planned trip back to IU for a reunion of some sort, so he hit me up to ask if I could cover for him that weekend.

Andy explained that not only would I get paid for the work time and mileage, but that he’d kick in a six-pack of some Indiana beer and a bucket of Tell City Pretzels as a pot sweetener. After I agreed to do that, word got around the newsroom pretty quickly that the college kid could be bribed into taking your graduation story gig if you ponied up some free beer. I think I wrote like 10 or 12 grad stories that year and had the best beer fridge of anyone my age.)

I got a hold of Andy late Tuesday night and filled him in on the situation, asking what a guy who cut his teeth at the IDS thought of the school’s actions. He didn’t mince words:

“As a former editor-in-chief of the Indiana Daily Student, I am deeply disturbed by this apparent attempt to censor the decisions of its student editors. The IDS charter specifies that ‘final editorial responsibility for all content rests with the chief student editors or leaders.

“I hope that the Media School leadership finds ways to work productively with the IDS editors to ensure that the student news organization retains the full independence granted by its charter. Ultimately, that journalistic independence is in the best interests of the school, the students and, most importantly, the public.”

I wonder whose profile the school will be taking down first, Jim’s or Andy’s?

DOCTOR OF PAPER HOT TAKE: This is what happens when you train great student journalists and then try to play them for fools. The level of ham-handed stupidity involved in not just what was done, but how openly it was discussed in various meetings where journalism folk were present makes some of the Watergate stuff look nuanced by comparison.

I mean, even the mob knows better than to talk about how they plan to whack a guy in terms this blatant.

As far as Rodenbush is concerned, he’ll be getting the red carpet treatment on a national stage, according to Mediafest 25 Convention Director Michael Koretzky:

Jim Rodenbush is coming to MediaFest. SPJ is paying his way.

Jim will be recognized during Friday’s keynote, and we hope to get video of the room applauding him – then make sure it gets back to campus. (Two IU TV students are attending MediaFest. Hopefully, they’ll record the moment along with the rest of us.)

If you’re coming to MediaFest, please say hello to Jim at Friday’s CMA/ACP reception and around the Grand Hyatt halls.

We have other things planned for Jim upon his arrival. SPJ president Emily Bloch is excited to host him, and SPLC’s Jonathan Falk will invite Jim to speak at one of his sessions. CMA leaders haven’t gotten back to me yet, but I’m sure they’re just as excited.

Let’s stand with and for Jim.

As for what’s next for the IDS, I’ve got an email in to Tolchinsky and his admin crew asking that question. I’ve also got emails in to the co-EICs to see if they want to fill me in on anything. In the name of full transparency, I did get one reply:

I don’t know about you, but I can practically hear Langosa’s sigh of relief in that message from here. If anything else comes through, I’ll update it here.

Looking ahead, I don’t know who is going to take the job next, as this is the second adviser in a row to get canned at IU under some really awkward circumstances. Hall of Fame media adviser Ron Johnson got removed, with the university arguing it was a financial situation while the students arguing that this was an attempt to censor the publication. When news of Rodenbush’s firing hit the College Media Association’s listserv, more than two dozen folks chimed in with messages of condolence for Rodenbush and some version of “This isn’t right.”

It’s out of pure, morbid curiosity that I want to see the job posting for whoever the hell IU thinks is going to saddle up for this gig.

In the mean time, please feel free to email Tolchinsky at: mschdean@iu.edu or call him at: 812-856-4513 to let him know if you disagree with this act of censorship. Also, please feel free to offer your support to the IDS staff (ids@indiana.edu), because they definitely deserve better than they getting, but they aren’t going down without a fight.

“Education in Indiana is a mess right now:” Student media are getting beat up in the Hoosier State

THE LEAD: Indiana, home of some of the best student media outlets in the country, appears bound and determined to kill off that reputation in some of the dumbest ways possible.

Purdue University recently informed its independent student newspaper, The Purdue Exponent, that the university would no longer assist in distributing print copies of the paper. Purdue also informed the Exponent it no longer wants the Purdue name to be commercially associated with the paper and that Exponent staff can no longer purchase parking passes on campus.

<SNIP>

Indiana University’s student newspaper, the Indiana Daily Student, has reduced its print distribution from weekly to a few times a month while struggling to navigate a changing relationship with the school.

Last year, the IDS found out from a leaked document that it would be part of a financial merger that included IU student television and WIUX. As part of the new arrangement, the IDS’ weekly print distribution was reduced.

This year, the IDS applied for funding from mandatory student fees through the university’s standard review process. The student-run Committee for Fee Review unanimously approved the proposal, but Provost Rahul Shrivastav rejected it — apparently the first time a provost had overruled the student committee’s decision.

 

DOCTOR OF PAPER HOT TAKE: Student media is always on the cusp of being beaten to death, but this situation hurts a little more because a) There appear to be fewer guardrails to prevent this kind of stuff these days in student media (and media in general) and b) it’s happening in Indiana, which has a strong, proud history of awesome student media that was well protected from overreach.

The logic behind both maneuvers appears to be as flimsy as the reason to keep Indiana’s Blue Laws on the books. (When I lived there in the mid 2000s, I wasn’t able to buy beer for making brats on a Sunday. That’s a crime against humanity, if you’re from Wisconsin.)

In Purdue’s case, the argument is that a contract expired and it’s time to reconsider the relationship between the paper and the campus. This might make sense, if the contract hadn’t expired in 2014 and yet both sides have abided by the contract terms in the intervening 11 years. Also, a “reconsideration” should probably involve some discussion between the parties (missing here) and some explanation as to WHY they’re reconsidering it (missing here as well).

In Indiana’s case, it’s a rolling clustermess of stupidity that we covered last year in detail. What was initially pitched as a “convergence effort” seems to be morphing into something else. To make up for the cutting of the print edition, something the students resisted, but the admin demanded, the Indiana Daily Student applied for campus funds to make up the difference. The student group that needed to approve it did so, but apparently “the kids’ opinion” only counts when it does what the admin wants, so the provost red-flagged the operation. According to coverage of this, it was the only time this kind of overreach happened. 

The students have the support of amazing organizations like SPLC, FIRE, ACP and CMA. In addition, student media outlets tend to have deep, rich alumni networks of people who will step up and say, “Oh HELL NO!” when this kind of thing happens. That said, the overall environment in which the media finds itself these days seems to make it easier to beat up on the media and get them to acquiesce to outrageous demands. That’s a clear concern.

The second concern about this happening in Indiana is really more problematic to the student media community at large than it might seem at first glance. When a friend of mine tipped me to this situation, she noted, “Education in Indiana is a mess right now.”

To my way of looking at it, hearing that Indiana is falling this hard is like hearing the New York Yankees are going bankrupt and turning to a little league team for players. If that’s happening to a big dog, the rest of the litter is screwed.

Two days after I got to Ball State to become a media adviser,  Louis Ingelhart was sitting in my office, ready to explain to me the importance of free and unfettered student media in this state. Louie was the gray eminence of student media in the state and in the country at that point. Every major First Amendment award worth winning, he won as a champion of free press. After he retired, pretty much every student media award associated with the First Amendment was named after him. He had established a policy that the only hands that should be reaching out to student media were helping hands and hands full of cash. Other than that, it was hands off.

One day later, I found a letter with a post-it stuck in my mailbox: It was from Louie, telling me I should get involved with SPLC. I still have that letter nearly 25 years later.

The ink has faded over the years, but it remains one of my favorite possessions.

It wasn’t just Louie, though. My boss in the department stood up for us more times than I wished she had to, all without once thinking about it being easier to acquiesce to the dark overlords of suppression. When we got a new dean who asked, “If Vince isn’t down in the newsroom every night editing the kids’ stuff, what are we paying him for?” she set the guy straight and made sure he understood how life worked.

At Indiana, we had David Adams, who helped develop outstanding journalists in a professional environment, all while making sure nobody messed with the IDS (and other outlets). Dave and I sat on the Indiana Collegiate Press Association board for about five years, and that group had significant participation from all the big and small schools, the publics and the privates. Administrators learned that the kids all had “big friends” who were not going to let the university steal the kids’ lunch money. Department heads at Indiana State, IU, Ball State, Purdue and others were behind the kids’ rights.

Now it looks like the admins aren’t as afraid as they used to be. That’s not to say that the advisers, student media outlets and student media folks aren’t as tough as they used to be. Not at all. In fact, they’re probably tougher and stronger than we were because they HAVE TO BE. However, it sucks that they have to be that good at this. Even more, it’s disappointing that administrators don’t understand they’re killing the goose that laid the golden egg.

Getting a publication off the ground is ridiculously hard. Keeping it running is even harder. Making sure it stays consistently awesome for a protracted period of time? Yeah, I’ve got a better chance of growing a “Farrah Do” by tomorrow than having that occur on the regular. Watching these people starve and abuse these kinds of publications is like watching some idiot spinning donuts in a parking lot with a classic car. Why wreck something something so amazing?

And, not to put too fine of a point on it, but if Indiana is kicking around student media, given the state’s decent history on being a beacon for First Amendment freedom, it’s going to get worse for everyone else as well.

“It gave me a purpose and quite literally saved my life a few times.” Why Student Media Matters (A Throwback Post_

With Friday being the Daily Cardinal’s anniversary day (133 years and counting), I decided to dig up this look at student media and why it matters to so many people for so long.

These days, I check in on the Cardinal website from time to time, read articles of various student media outlets that their college media advisers share and often sit with a print copy of the Advance-Titan (the UWO student publication). I also find myself thinking about how student media are leading the way these days when it comes to important issues.

Tufts University’s student publication, The Tufts Daily, has been on top of the story about Rumeysa Öztürk, a graduate student detained on March 25 by Homeland Security as part of a “pro-Palestine” sweep in Boston. The Minnesota Daily on the U of M campus has covered similar issues, including a lawsuit a student filed as the result of ICE detention. The Daily Northwestern has looked into the denial of tenure for a professor who had spoken in favor of Palestine.

(And not to let my bias show, but the Daily Cardinal is nailing down significant stories about how the federal government’s cuts to the Fulbright program have bigger consequences in some lesser-known areas, the Wisconsin Supreme Court election and more.)

Without free and independent student journalism, we’re not going to see these kinds of stories getting covered as honestly and fervently. When friends say something like, “Hey, the chancellor is giving us a big new building for student media because we’re getting moved under the umbrella of UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS AND OUTREACH!” I start to develop a twitch.

Sure, you can still write stories about the cool new clubs or the professor who won a major award, but you’re going to have a hard time running stories about sexual assault reports, football player misconduct or hazing attacks. That’s one of the many reasons why I still support my student media friends and causes to this day.

(SPOILER ALERT: The post below starts with a look at Doane University and a problem related to student media. The situation at Doane University got worked out and Doane Student Media kept on rolling.  You can see all the great work students there continue to do through this link.)

Enjoy this look why student media matters so much to so many people.

“It gave me a purpose and quite literally saved my life a few times.” Why Student Media Matters

The Board of Trustees at Doane University approved of President Jacque Carter’s suggested cuts and mergers during its Monday meeting, meaning that Doane Student Media is on a downward spiral to financial insolvency. Editor in chief Meaghan Stout has been covering the situation since the cuts were first announced, which is a lot like being asked to serve as a pall bearer for your own funeral.

According to former Doane student media adviser David Swartzlander, the cuts don’t go into effect until July 1, which gives Stout and others about nine months to raise unholy hell about them, something we’ve asked you all to do throughout the week.

If you’re thinking, “None of this makes any sense. She’s graduating in a month, so she’s done with this place. And why are you dedicating so much time and energy blathering on about student media cuts at a university the size of your high school? You don’t have a horse in this race….,” well, I get it.

From the outside, this looks pathologically stupid.

If you’ve ever spent any time in student media, this makes all the sense in the world.

I asked people I know who have gone in myriad directions after their educational careers came to a close if they ever worked in student media and, if so, why it mattered to them. One of the best journalists I’ve ever been lucky enough to work with, a wordsmith and a storyteller unlike any other, didn’t disappoint:

My high school had no paper. I started one, called “The Cardinal Chirps.” There was news, sports and jokes on four mimeographed pages. (Smelled great!) It may have lasted three issues. The jokes were filler and I learned that not everyone has the same sense of humor. Don’t print jokes. Working at that paper was a revelation. I could find something that didn’t make sense – a section of the lockers were inexplicably located in a dark room with one narrow door – and write about it. It wasn’t safe for those who had their lockers in there. The principal and school board took note and changed it. No had ever brought it to their attention. The learning was true: You can’t fix something if you don’t know it is broken.

I expected a few responses from a few other people, but not much.

I was stunned when I got dozens, like this one from a journalism professor with a background in news:

I graduated from a small rural high school that didn’t even have a school paper. My interest in news grew from my mom’s obsessive consumption of newspapers (we subscribed to two and sometimes three), news magazines (I think we got four), news talk radio (on constantly), morning/noon/evening local and national TV news, public affairs shows on PBS and all the Sunday morning news talk shows, and my own growing awareness that there were other places in the world far from Tonganoxie, Kansas, that I dreamed of seeing someday. It seemed wise to understand what was going on in them before going. And before going, I had to have money. I understood from my good friend that one could be paid actual money for fixing errors in news writing by being something called a copy editor. The University Daily Kansan and my professors with newsroom experience showed me how to be that.

Another higher-ed friend who works as a student media adviser had a similar life experience:

Working in college media was the step for me that solidified how I could attain my dream to work as a professional journalist. Before my college media experience, the concept was very abstract. Moving from dreaming to doing via my student newspaper made it real for me. I am forever grateful to those who gave me the opportunity and helped me see I could do it.

Folks who took the path out of news and into corporate communications, consulting and other similar fields found that student media benefited them as well:

I wanted to write books before I signed up for journalism class in high school on kind of a whim. In that class, I found that I had a knack for journalistic writing, most likely from reading the local paper and my dad’s influence as a TV journalist. Taking that class and continuing that path led me to attend J-School at MU and altered my career path. It also gave me an understanding of and appreciation for the importance of LOCAL journalism.

These responses made sense: Student media was like an internship and a training center for going on to do great and mighty things in the field itself. However, I also saw how the people who went into fields that had nothing to do with news or PR still found amazing value in student media:

I draw from my experience at the DN almost every day. I’ve worked for two law firms and a dental office since college. I’m comfortable asking questions, I’ve learned how to build relationships and I have a better understanding of how government works. The most important thing I have learned is that no matter how much effort you put toward your day, something could change and you need to be ready to shift your priorities and maybe undo all you’ve just done.
My boss at SAGE, who puts up with an awful lot from me, apparently found her muse through student media as well:
Basically shaped my entire college experience. Learned the basic responsibilities, ethical implications, and work ethic of a journalist. Being on the paper motivated me to write about things I was interested in, when I already had to write so much for school…Also I got to interview some really interesting people!
The one common thread, I saw overall, however, was that student media was more than a thing people did. It was who they were. The newsroom wasn’t like a classroom where they HAD to go. It was a place that gave them something special and they WANTED to be there:
It was my happy place. The place where I always knew what I was doing, and why. The place where everything just made sense. Why else would someone finish a shift, go home, get their books and go back to the newsroom to study. Because that’s where I was always focused.

And…

It was my home away from home. And it allowed me to experiment with what I wanted to do.
And…

 

Genuinely don’t know where to start. The friends, the experiences, now I’m working in media. Joined junior year of high school and haven’t looked back since. It gave me a purpose and quite literally saved my life a few times. I could go on and on.
And so many other people did as well, sharing stories of life-long friendships that developed thanks to pressure-packed deadlines, no sleep and a sense of belonging they never found before or since. At the risk of becoming hyperbolic, student media provides people with something that borders on magical, a familial bond forged in a way that never truly seems to break.

 

I understand why Meaghan Stout is fighting like hell, against all common sense, for her student media family, because 25 years ago, I was her.

 

I remember sitting in my journalism adviser’s office six weeks after our student newspaper closed under the weight of $137,700 in debt. My adviser was also my teaching assistant for Media Law, a course I was essentially flunking because I had poured all of my time into fixing the Daily Cardinal.

 

“You need to quit the paper,” she told me. “You’re going to fail.”

 

In retrospect, I think she meant the law class, but that’s not how I heard it.

 

I then listened as she told me how when she was in college, her student newspaper was moving from a weekly to a daily and how she was pressured to put the paper first and everything else second. Instead, she stuck with her classwork and got her degree. Besides, she explained, even if I managed to fix the problems, the paper was likely to shrivel up and die after I left, so what was the point?

 

In the abstract, she was right. Take care of yourself. Get the grades. Besides, there was another student newspaper on campus I could work for, so what made this Quixotic journey so important? I couldn’t explain it, but even if I could, I doubt she would have understood.

 

So, I let her finish, told her I’d think about it and then I went back down to the newsroom and kept working on fixing the paper. By the next semester, we’d pulled it back from the brink of collapse and started printing again.

 

It’s still running to this day.

 

For me, my student media experience wasn’t about the articles I wrote or the editorial positions I held or the arguments we had. (We often joked that we were a family in the newsroom, in that we drank a lot and hurt each other…)

 

It wasn’t that, without that paper, there’s no way I would have gotten this far in life, and I’d probably have had a heck of a career as a fairly decent auto mechanic. It also wasn’t the life experiences it gave me either, although without the paper my kid would likely have different godparents and I would have been deprived of the opportunity to return the favor.

 

I still can’t adequately explain what it is that makes student media matter so much, whether it’s the paper I worked for, the papers I advised or the papers I never ever knew of before a crisis threatened them.

 

What I can say is that I love reading the articles the students write, as I wonder how much blood, sweat and tears went into just getting that inverted-pyramid piece to hold together. I love seeing those 20-somethings I knew through my media conference presentations or newsroom visits doing great and mighty things as reporters, editors, copy editors and more. I love it even more when I see them finding joy in life outside of the field, moving into politics, social work or psychology.

 

I treasure the photos I see of engagements and weddings that bloomed from seeds planted on a production night. The houses they buy, the babies they have, the lives they develop… Somehow, it all comes back to that moment they found someone else who had the weird sense of humor that grew from spending too much time in a windowless bunker that smelled of old newsprint and burnt coffee.

 

In all my time at all these institutions of higher learning, I’ve yet to come across another student organization or activity that even came close to what student media does, both for the campus and for its practitioners. This is something people like Jacque Carter don’t understand, because to them, it’s a pain in the ass that costs money and points out things they don’t want pointed out.

 

To us, it’s life.

 

P.S. – I passed law with a C that semester. Even if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have changed a thing.

Catching up with the Indiana Daily Student, finding the last vestige of significant fact checking and celebrating a bit of good news (A Junk Drawer Post)

I’m sure if we look hard enough, we’ll find our next secretary of the interior in here…

Welcome to this edition of the junk drawer. As we have outlined in previous junk drawer posts, this is a random collection of stuff that is important but didn’t fit anywhere else, much like that drawer in the kitchen of most of our homes.

It seems like a good time to do one of these, as we need to catch up on a few things, starting with the situation at Indiana University…

 

FROM THE “YOU CAN’T SPELL ‘YOU IDIOT’ WITHOUT ‘IU'” DEPARTMENT

As we noted in a previous post, the incoming lieutenant governor of Indiana, Micah Beckwith, threatened the Indiana Daily Student for its coverage of the election.

Beckwith, who looks like if Seth MacFarlane and Josh Duggar ever entered into a “Twins Experiment” together, didn’t like the Donald Trump cover, in which the paper listed all the things people who worked with Trump had said about him and then noted how we just elected this guy anyway.

The IDS caught up with Beckwith for a protracted interview about his “we will be happy to stop them” comment about the paper as well as what he actually knows about how free speech works. You can find the transcript here. I’ve read it three times and it’s basically like someone bought a box of “Ranting Uncle At Thanksgiving Magnetic Poetry” and threw it into a blender.

Making things even better for the man who will soon be one heartbeat away from running Indiana, the Society for Professional Journalists has decided to up the ante.

Michael Koretzky posted on the SPJ blog about the situation and has worked with the IDS staff to create T-shirts that have the front page of the paper on them, as well as a “Come Get Some” call out to Beckwith on the back.

It obviously goes without saying that I’ve ordered one… You can too at this link.

 

JOIN THE BLUESKY REVOLUTION

As we mentioned at the start of the week, the social media platform for the blog shifted from X to Bluesky. As promised, I’ve started a “starter pack” of journalists, journalism educators, media nerds and friends of the blog. If you are interested in seeing who’s in the mix, feel free to click the link here

Also, you can feel free to hit me up and ask to be added to our motley crew.

 

GOODNIGHT, GRANDPA JOE

One of the things I tell my students a lot when they take my reporting class is that the skill I can almost guarantee they’ll use is obituary writing. Not only did I write a ton of these as a cub reporter, I’ve had the unfortunate honor of helping former students write them to honor family members who have died.

This week, I found myself at a keyboard, practicing what I preach.

My last grandparent died on Friday at the age of 101. Grandpa Joe was a lot of things, including a veteran of World War II, a police chief and a loyal rotary member. He was also a former pinball machine repairman, an avid sheepshead player and a great joke teller.

(This is one of my favorite pictures of him, as he taught my daughter, Zoe, how to play backgammon during one Thanksgiving visit. The photo basically says, “What a sweet moment between a great-grandfather and his great-granddaughter.” If you look closer at Zoe’s face, it is a mask of determination that basically says, “I’m gonna beat you this time, old man!”)

Aside from the astronomical costs some papers charge for placing basic memorials (the average cost for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel was about $5 per word), I was also stunned at the level of verification the company required of me.

The obituary form required me to have digital verification of who I was, my relationship to the deceased and contact information so they could verify who I was. In addition, they required the name of the funeral home/crematorium that was handling the remains, as well as contact information for someone who could verify the death had occurred.

A few hours after I submitted the form, I received an email explaining that they had confirmed the information with the organization I listed and that the obituary would be allowed to run.

Two things dawned on me, having gone through this process. First, this kind of thing is apparently necessary because some chuckleheads file false death reports on other people, either as a joke or as a threat. Second, this might be the most fact-checking of something that goes into a publication these days.

 

AS YOGI BERRA WOULD SAY, “THANK YOU ALL FOR MAKING THIS NECESSARY.”

Finally, I wanted to end on a positive note and thank everyone who has been reviewing and using my introductory/media-literacy text, “Exploring Mass Communication.” Whenever I try something new, I always do my best to make sure it’s useful and helpful to the people I’m trying to reach.

Apparently, it works well, as I found out it’s up for a major award:

To be fair, when I first saw the email, I thought it was one of those fake society things, where they tell you that you’re a “Teacher of the Year,” with the goal of getting you to buy overpriced coffee mugs with your name and award status on them. After I did some digging and bothered some people at Sage, it turned out to be a real thing.

I can’t thank you all enough for being part of this process with me, whether you were reviewing early chapters, helping me rework some features or using the book in your classes. A book without readers is like a tree that falls in the forest with nobody around and I know this book wouldn’t be anything without you.

Honestly, I’ve seen the things that have won in the past and I do not expect to win at all. The announcement for this will be in March 2025, so it’s far enough away for me to dream about it, but not close enough where I’m checking my email every 5.2 seconds.

When I know something, you’ll know something.

Best,

Vince (a.k.a. The Doctor of Paper)

Indiana’s incoming Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith threatens a student newspaper for telling its readers what people who worked with Donald Trump said about Donald Trump

(I don’t think Indiana Lieutenant Governor-elect and far-right pastor Micah Beckwith understands how the First Amendment works. I could teach him, but I’d have to charge…)

THE LEAD: Shortly after being elected as Indiana’s next lieutenant governor, Micah Beckwith decided to take his newfound power out for a test drive by threatening the Indiana Daily Student newspaper with censorship:

WHO IS THIS GUY? Beckwith is a 42-year-old, hard-right Republican, who has never held any political office prior to winning the lieutenant governor position. He came in third in 2020 while running for a U.S. house seat in Indiana. He graduated from Huntington University, a private college affiliated with the Church of the United Brethren in Christ.

After graduating with a business/economics degree in 2005, he worked for two years with EmbroidMe and two more as a “Co-Owner” of an LLC. After that, he found his calling as a pastor for the White River Christian Church. After five years there, Beckwith took a gig as a pastor at Northview Church in 2014. Critics deemed him a “white Christian nationalist,” who has compared vaccines to rape, opposes all LGBTQ issues and has engaged in book banning. He also runs a podcast called “Jesus, Sex and Politics.”

While campaigning, he threatened to fire any state employee who works with his office who uses pronouns in their email signatures, something Beckwith gamely tried to walk back later. Beckwith also referred to his Democrat opponents as evoking the “Jezebel spirit,” a sexist and racist term that reaches back to the Jim Crow South.

In short, an overall fun guy…

 

A QUICK BREAKDOWN: Here’s a quick look of how this situation is dumber than a bucketful of hair:

First, the students did not call Donald Trump these things. They literally QUOTED people who WORKED WITH TRUMP on the cover of the paper to make a point. If he looked at the people who said this stuff, I have a hard time believing Beckwith could get away with calling ANY of them “woke.”

Even more, people who are more politically aligned with Beckwith are pointing out on X how he completely misread this situation:

Screenshot

(Let’s also sidestep the whole “this is what your taxes are paying for” thing, as a) they are not, b) even if they were, financing a free press isn’t a bad thing and c) there are far dumber things tax money goes toward…)

Finally, the First Amendment guarantees the right to a free press, unfettered by the whims of governmental figures. Punishment for free speech of this kind is not allowed in this country (whether we’re truly a “democracy” or not). It’s unclear how Beckwith will “stop it for them” but I doubt it would be legal.

 

COMMENTS ON THE SITUATION: I reached out to co-EICs Marissa Meador and Jacob Spudich for a comment on the controversy and they were nice enough to respond:

“While we welcome criticism of our newspaper and its content, we are staunch defenders of the First Amendment and the freedom it grants to the press — including student journalism. Our front page clearly attributes the quotes to former allies of Donald Trump, which we collected from several articles across the New York Times and CNN. Beckwith’s statement implying he will attempt to control or suppress what we publish is deeply concerning, not just for staffers at the Indiana Daily Student but for our constitutional principles overall.”

I messaged Beckwith’s office with several questions and a request for comment. I received nothing to this point, but if I do I’ll post it here. (Don’t hold your breath on this one…)

Still, my favorite response of all of this came from the admin at Indiana University. As we covered in a four-part series last month, the Media School was trying to force the IDS to be part of a converged media environment under its rank and dominion. When this thing hit, here was the university’s response:

When asked if IU had any comment on Beckwith’s claims about IU and his potential action toward the IDS, IU spokesperson Mark Bode said “The Indiana Daily Student is editorially independent from Indiana University.”

In case you are unfamiliar, that’s what it sounds like when someone jumps ship…

DOCTOR OF PAPER HOT TAKE: This is the kind of ham-handed, saber-rattling stupidity that comes from people who claim to love this country but consistently fail to understand what our country actually protects and allows. The same freedom of speech that allowed Donald Trump to call Kamala Harris “a shitty vice president” and allowed Beckwith to refer to his opponents as having the “Jezebel spirit” also protects speech that Beckwith DOESN’T like.

I could also go back to that famous line about never picking a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel, and add that you shouldn’t take on a media outlet that has 10 times the number of followers you do on X.

I often get responses to posts like this calling me “an academic liberal” or a “lefty professor,” both of which are not only untrue, but so far afield they’re likely to make my mother laugh so hard she could pass an entire Subway footlong through her nose.

In truth, I’m neither left or right, but I am definitely anti-bully and anti-hypocrite. I see this guy as being in both zones, so that’s why he really needs a reality check.

ACTION OFFER: If you want to tell Beckwith what you think about this, you can hit him up on Twitter/X, or email him through his campaign website here. Maybe if he hears enough from enough people, he’ll learn something.

That said, the guy literally thinks that Jesus pushed him to take the Beckwith Model of Intolerance and Stupidity ™ to the political sphere, so I somehow doubt he’s going to back off.