essay on campus journalism

InsightOut: The Importance of Student Journalism to Campus Life

Chiara Greco is a fourth-year student studying Philosophy and English at St. Mike ’ s College. Since her second year she has been involved with student journalism and harbours a deep passion for the field. She is currently the Editor in Chief of  The Mike , our official student newspaper.

The Importance of Student Journalism to Campus Life

When I reflect on the importance of student journalism, especially in a time when we have been struck with a global pandemic, my immediate reaction is to create a defence of the field. To rake up all the reasons in my head why student journalism is important and worthwhile. While I can’t be sure where this response came from, I am sure that many people question the choice of being a student journalist—of the added stress without perhaps the large reward or payoff, or even exposure, that professional journalists get in breaking stories. While I’ve been told the career path I have chosen may be a “dying field” I’ve still prospered through my experience and, if anything, this global pandemic has shown me exactly why student journalism is so important.

In a time of social distancing the importance of staying connected through stories, media, and news is so pertinent. Our current global crisis has unveiled the dependence we all have on media and news to connect us. I’ll be the first to admit that virtual living—and learning, for that matter—can be very impersonal, and presents a challenge to most. But the job of student journalists is to bridge this gap between virtual life and ‘normal’ life for students across the university community. Student journalism is a pillar of university life on campus, and with our new-found virtual world, student journalists are those who will form the path towards online community. Stories are the basis of life, the overarching connection we all have to each other, and it is through journalism that these stories get communicated.

While my experience will not speak for everyone, I understand the importance of representing the masses, of being a voice to and for the unheard, and of cultivating a personal experience through our shared stories. Student newspapers like The Mike are an avenue in which this cultivation takes place—and, frankly, it’s hard to imagine university life without student newspapers or the journalists who staff them.

My time at St. Michael’s College has been defined by my involvement with The Mike, starting at the beginning of my second year. From working on the news team to becoming the Editor in Chief, I’ve understood that student journalists have a nuanced responsibility to their peers. We have a responsibility not only to hold our school accountable but also to be a reliable source of student life and news. Integrity, facts, and accountability summarize the three pillars which have come to define my experience of student journalism, and they will continue to guide me through my role with student publications.

Over the summer as I prepared for my role as Editor-in-Chief  I faced many challenges in reinventing the paper as an online periodical. The future of The Mike fell into my hands, and while it may have seemed like a large task to take on, especially with the challenges of the pandemic, I was privileged to represent the St. Mike’s community. As I transitioned into my role I began to prepare for things none of my predecessors had to ready for—how to run a printed student newspaper during a global pandemic. With no precedent,  changing the course of The Mike meant I had to evaluate the immense role student newspapers have within the university community. To put it simply, without student newspapers one of the most crucial aspects of student life would be taken away. In this way, The Mike ’ s achievements and success translate directly into St. Mike’s overall successes and achievements.

For as long as can be remembered The Mike has delivered students with a print version of the paper across campus newsstands. But the newspaper has been forced to make some hard decisions, such as forgoing our printed paper for now. But since The Mike’s inception our intake of news as students has changed drastically. While an online publication may take away the feeling of holding a physical copy of your work, we now rely more than ever on online avenues to give us news and connection, so The Mike ’ s online home has gone through a complete 180.  We’ve changed our website and delivery to allow more students to access and stay up to date with our publication and newsletters.

It is the duty of student journalists to deliver their colleagues’ voices on campus. The importance of cultivating a community across borders is exactly why student journalism is so valuable, because without it the distance between us would be far exacerbated. Student journalists, like professionals in the field, need to become experts on our own community. We need to become a voice for those students who may otherwise not be represented on campus. But this wide range of representation is only accomplished if students contribute their voices. The more voices published in The Mike , the more the diverse and accurate the representation of our community. So while a printed copy of the paper would be an ultimate goal, we have to remember the importance of accessibility and inclusivity when representing the student community. In a time of social distance, it only makes sense for student journalists to present student life as such.

While this pandemic has taught me many things, both good and bad, navigating my role as a student journalist and Editor in Chief of The Mike will perhaps be one of my biggest takeaways. Student journalism is at the heart of every university and college campus. It’s what connects us all.

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What is campus journalism & why do students need it.

In 1991, the Philippine Government passed the Campus Journalism Act, one of the strongest laws which supports the development and promotion of student journalism, rights of the youth, and preserving the integrity of student publications. The law also states that anyone who obstructs or coerces any student publication and a student journalist shall be penalized.

Since the 18 th century, students raised their voices to demand social and political changes in their universities and countries. They then began to write letters and petitions as a form of protest. By the end of the 19 th century, universities and colleges in the U.S had weekly newspapers and many of them even had dailies. By 1973, more than 1,200 university newspapers had been published

We’ve all been a part of our school/college newspapers or magazines, be it in photos, published articles, essays, and more. However, there is more to it than just commissioning, writing and editing articles, it fosters a sense of liberalism, freedom of speech, the expression of societal issues, and other ‘tabooed’ topics that you won’t find in textbooks. Typically, a campus newspaper or magazine functions exactly how the media is supposed to – reporting the news, help determine which issues should be discussed, and keep people actively involved in society and politics.

Campus journalism exists in three main forms –

• School-sponsored – where the income arrives from university.
• Independent – a student publication not affiliated with the school
• Online – in the form of blogs, podcasts, or PDF copies of printed versions.

It gives students the opportunity to hone and practice their journalistic skills, and be the voice of change by getting readers to think about pressing issues that they probably wouldn’t have read anywhere else. Certain student communities also look to expand their horizons beyond just the campus, and discuss topics such as gender equality, human rights or even the protection of animals.

One of the biggest benefits of campus journalism is that you never get into trouble, unlike the case with mainstream media in society. However, this does not mean that reportage has ‘no limits’. Campus newspapers and magazines have established certain boundaries and authorities can even take action should these boundaries be crossed. An article in Careers 360 says the The Scholar’s Avenue lost it’s funding after publishing a report on the poor condition of the hospital, at IIT-Kharagpur. However, articles that are controversial in nature often get heavy editing or may even be completely scrapped.

Certain campus newspapers are always solely run by the students themselves, they have a presiding faculty member steering the ship. However, this doesn’t mean you will have to filter out your opinions, the faculty’s sole purpose is to serve as an advisor, that will be instrument in establishment and growth. However, being a part of a dynamic team will teach you soft-skills more than any classroom could, like effective communication and management skills.

Campus Journalism does not have to limit itself to the university level, but should also have an important stake at a National level too. Afterall, the youth are the change makers, and will determine he future of any society by formulating, amending, and implementing national policies.

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The Observer

The importance of student journalism

Beau Bilinovich , Development Editor September 30, 2022

As staff members of The Observer, we like to tout ourselves as the voice of the student body. We are the platform for students from all walks of life and backgrounds, allowing all to share their stories and ideas with the campus community. But what does it actually mean—the voice of the student body? Why does what we, as student journalists, do matter? What’s the point, anyway?

Being a writer, I sometimes ask myself those questions. Whenever I write an article, I feel as if I’m just sending it off into the silent void where, save for a few of my family members (who are awesome), no one truly cares. Of course, that isn’t true. The conversations we as writers create with the community of Case Western Reserve University and the surrounding Cleveland community are important. It’s one of the ways we connect with the people around us.

So what do we gain from student journalism?

Student journalism can act as a model for the real world, where people can freely and openly discuss ideas, debate and point to the problems that need to be addressed. As opposed to state or even federal politics, schools offer a smaller, more confined community. It’s easier to see the effects of a change in, for example, university policy, since we are around each other all the time and see the direct effects immediately. When we familiarize ourselves with campus-wide issues, we can learn to understand strategies for resolving them.

That skill—figuring out how to resolve conflicts—is needed now more than ever. 60% of rural youth and 30% of urban youth live in “civic deserts,” where limited opportunities are available to meet people, discuss issues and address problems. Trying to cure the maladies that plague the country nationally is hard enough. But by engaging in conversations on the campus level, students can more easily meet and find solutions to the issues specific to a school’s community. 

For us at CWRU, that means calling to attention when the administration has an inadequate response to changes in housing policies, as happened last semester, or to the violent crimes that frequent this place we call home—issues that we are all too familiar with. For students at Virginia Commonwealth University, that means being on the front lines and covering police brutality protests. And countless school papers reported on the pandemic and its effects on the student body, including ourselves.

Hence by working together to figure out solutions to the problems affecting the campus community, we can build bridges. Figuring out solutions forces us to see each other. It brings the community closer together. This connection is valuable—especially since we as young adults were affected the most by loneliness and social isolation due to the pandemic.

Student journalism also enables young Americans to have their voices heard, broadcast and uplifted. Much of the political power in this country is held by older Americans: The average ages of members of the Senate and House of Representatives is 62.9 years and 57.6 years, respectively. President Joe Biden is currently the oldest president in history at 79 years old. Moreover, voter turnout for younger Americans in 2020 lagged behind older Americans by about 25%.

Seeing so much authority in the hands of only a fraction of the U.S. population can feel crushing. The connection that student journalists have with their community can help to mitigate these feelings and give young voices a sense of validity, especially when our concerns are often silenced.

No student newspaper is at the same level as The Washington Post or The New York Times. We aren’t Daniel Ellsberg uncovering classified government documents detailing two decades’ worth of U.S. military involvement in Vietnam, but our work still has value in its own way. But as a student newspaper, we do cover issues personal to us, the student body. We shine a light on the issues that large media outlets might not pick up on, the issues that we have to face every day on campus. That’s what truly matters.

So that is what it means to be the voice of the student body. It’s not that we speak for all students, but rather that we bring conversations forward and unite together to determine how we can change this university for the better. Obviously, no writer can speak for every individual; differences in values make this near impossible. But we can share in a common understanding that CWRU, and all other universities, should be places for students to thrive.

Beau Bilinovich (he/him) is a fourth-year student majoring in aerospace engineering. When not struggling to turn in his homework at the last minute, he...

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Table of Contents

The role of student publications on campus.

Use:  The video adaptation of this lesson and the script can be used during digital or in-person journalism program orientations, class lectures, or as part of remarks while onboarding new student newspaper staff.

• Complete video adaptation for online teaching (length, 5:52)
• Sample remarks for in-person instruction
• Additional resources for students

The Role of Student Publications on Campus: Video Adaptation

Download in-person instructions

Sample Remarks for In-Person Instruction

Student journalists and publications play a vital role in informing their fellow students about campus events, serving as a check on their school’s administration, and uncovering stories that outside media might miss.

With more and more local news outlets shuttering, many college newspapers are the primary source of information about not only what’s happening on campuses but also their surrounding communities. 

For example, student newspapers across the country covered Black Lives Matter protests of regional and national significance. From The A&T Register at North Carolina A&T State University to The Collegian at California State University Fresno to The Minnesota Daily (a 121-year old student newspaper) at the University of Minnesota, student publications reported on protests on their campuses and across their surrounding communities, shedding light on alleged institutional racism and civil injustice. 

During the pandemic, student publications played a key role in holding administrators and students accountable. For instance, The Michigan Daily exposed a COVID-19 outbreak among the fraternities and sororities at University of Michigan, Arizona State University’s student publication reported on students leaving their dorms while they were supposed to be under quarantine, and the student paper at the University of South Carolina alerted the public to the ways in which the administration was withholding information about COVID-19 clusters. 

Moving forward, student media will continue to have an important role to play.

Types of Student Publications

Publications can have a variety of formats, including print and digital newspapers, student blogs, journals, and class publications.

Most student newspapers fit into one of two broad categories: classroom publications and editorially independent publications.

Classroom papers, sometimes referred to as lab publications, are primarily teaching tools for publishing stories, and the work is usually directed, assigned, and graded by a professor. In this kind of class, your professor can exercise their academic freedom to maintain much more control over what is published. That being said, they still must approach grading and publishing in a viewpoint neutral way. 

With respect to editorially independent papers (which can be funded either through student fees collected by the university or independent sources) students are responsible for content, sometimes with the guidance of a faculty member or an advisor. These advisors act as sounding boards when brainstorming stories, share institutional knowledge, provide advice on ethical issues, and make sure student journalists’ rights are being respected. At public schools and at private schools that commit themselves to free speech, administrators and faculty cannot dictate what can and cannot be published. 

In regard to funding, student publications have the same rights as any other recognized student organization. Administrators and student governments must be viewpoint-neutral when making funding decisions. For example, a school cannot deny or rescind funding based on reporting that represents the school in a negative light or angers alumni and donors.

Protecting Your Rights as Student Journalists

Student publications are protected by the First Amendment at public universities. At private universities, their treatment should be consistent with university policy—which, at most private schools, clearly expresses a commitment to freedom of speech, if not freedom of the press specifically.

Despite robust protections for student journalists, some colleges have attempted to censor or punish student publications, particularly when student journalists have been critical of the administration or have written about topics the administration finds objectionable.

Among some of the tactics administrators have used to silence journalists are defunding a publication, using the threat of an investigation, insisting on prior review before publication, and putting pressure on journalists and student media advisors to steer coverage. 

Having a recorded or written record is key to pushing back against censorship. If anyone does try to silence you, utilize your reporting skills to make sure you maintain a record of communication and alert your advisor. 

Other students, university staff members, and sometimes even administrators, have been known to steal or destroy free papers distributed on campus for publishing unpopular opinions or unfavorable coverage. This kind of action is vandalism or theft and should be treated and reported on as such. 

The best way to protect against censorship, particularly administrative censorship, is to know your rights and make sure your reporting is ethically sound. Good journalism practices should already avoid the kind of unprotected speech, such as obscenity or defamation, that a school might try to use to justify interfering with student editorial judgment.

Be clear with sources about what is on and off the record, make sure you know your state’s laws regarding recording conversations, and always try to clearly identify yourself as an on-duty reporter when attending events you’re covering.

Student publications play a vital role in informing students about events and occurrences on campus, exposing wrongdoing, holding leadership accountable, and informing the larger community about relevant events. In order to perform these important services, publications should be autonomous and free from editorial interference or censorship by administrators. 

Additional Resources for Students

Student Press Censorship — What Does it Look Like?

Under Pressure: The Warning Signs of Student Newspaper Censorship

A Citizen’s Guide to Recording the Police

Student Press Law Center’s Public Records Letter Generator

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Democracy and Disinformation: The role of campuses, campus journalism, citizen journalism and fact-checking in the struggle for democracy

“A large part of the struggle to keep democracy alive in this country—in any country—will be the struggle to keep our campuses free.” Such were the words spoken by University of the Philippines Visayas (UP Visayas) Chancellor Clement Camposano at the 3rd National Conference on Democracy and Disinformation, hosted this year virtually by UP Visayas.

For Camposano, colleges and universities, particularly UP, have become the subject of disinformation campaigns on social media. He characterized the attacks on the platforms as a vilification campaign, which not only poses a challenge to members of the university community, but also to the country’s democracy at large. “The University is under siege because there is a campaign of vilification against it, a campaign intent on portraying our campuses not only as breeding grounds of radicalism. . . but also as safe havens for enemies of the state,” he added.

Speaking to an online audience largely composed of the academe, particularly campus journalists, the chancellor underscored the role of campus journalists in challenging disinformation, particularly among members of the university community. “To keep democracy from breathing its last, we need to keep our campuses alive. Alive with ideas, with disputations, with political dreams of all sorts. Alive with politics, broadly construed,” he said.

Disinformation and government accountability

Speaking of campus journalists, Senator Risa Hontiveros underscored their role in the fight against the dictatorship of President Ferdinand Marcos. She particularly highlighted the Philippine Collegian and its editor Abraham Sarmiento, Jr., quoting his words, “kung hindi tayo kikilos? Kung hindi tayo kikibo, sino ang kikibo? Kung hindi ngayon, kailan pa?” which were a challenge to fellow students to stand for freedom of speech and democracy.

Hontiveros also recalled how the Marcos dictatorship immediately closed down media organizations after proclaiming Martial Law, resulting to the growth of clandestine media organizations which would later emerge during the 1986 People Power Revolution. “The role of the media in protecting our democracy cannot be understated,” she said, mentioning its role as providing check and balance of government, acting as the virtual 4th branch of government.

The former broadcast journalist also paid tribute to local media organizations all over the country, including regional newspapers in the Visayas and Mindanao, whose relentless reports on the pivotal moments during Martial Law aided in the fight against state-sponsored disinformation and the restoration of democracy. “The Filipino media’s courage and ingenuity paved the way for more and more Filipinos to know the truth. For more Filipinos to wake up from a deep, deep slumber,” she added.

The senator also emphasized how the media plays an important role in providing the public with information which serves as the baseline of facts, from which people of different persuasions can have a rational discussion. “Without media, and if all we’re fed is propaganda or dis- and misinformation, this can polarize societies and skew public debates,” she said. She said that this lack of a common set of evidence-based facts will not only mean distortions of reality, but it will also make government accountability impossible.

Speaking likewise on the accountability of government, Rappler Chief Executive Officer Maria Ressa said it was important for people to have accurate information from the media, as it will enable them to demand accountability and transparency from their government. “If we don’t have facts, we can’t have a shared reality and we cannot hold government to account, protect our rights, and protect our democracy,” she said.

Ressa, who has been the subject of several law suits regarding the ownership of Rappler and a supposed libelous news article against a businessman, views the charges against her as harassment of the media by the Duterte administration. She has been the subject of disinformation efforts by trolls on social media with the use of memes, altered images and misquotes. She has also been threatened by dubious social media users via messages and comments. “We have been demolished. We have been attacked, like Leila de Lima. Like Leni Robredo. We have been ridiculed. We have been dehumanized,” she said.

Aside from threats against journalists, Ressa also highlighted how social media platforms in recent years have been used to disseminate false information on the Marcos dictatorship. Coupled with constant attacks on journalists and media organizations, these are intended not to disprove what one already knows and has learned from studies, but to sow doubt. “The goal is not to make you believe something, although they seed a metanarrative for it. But the goal is to make you doubt everything. Because if you don’t trust anyone, then you’re not gonna do anything,” she added.

Citizen journalism and newsrooms

Also speaking on the role of citizens in exacting accountability in governance, the former head of ABS-CBN Bayan Mo iPatrol Mo , Inday Espina-Varona, said social media have over the years, become platforms where aside from personal rants, users can share issues of public concern. She is however careful to distinguish a citizen journalist from an ordinary social media user. “When you say you are a citizen journalist, you may not be a professional practitioner of journalism, but you report with the basics of journalism,” she said. That would include sharing accurate information and unadulterated multimedia materials like videos, audio materials or photos, to news organizations.

Emphasizing the importance of facts, the veteran journalist said one does not need to be a journalist to have the obligation to respect the truth. She even highlighted how one well known pro-administration blogger excused herself from being factual in her online postings by saying she is not a journalist. “You don’t need to be a journalist to be able to appreciate the need to be loyal to facts,” she said.

Aside from respecting facts, Varona said social media users, particularly citizen journalists, must also adopt journalism ethics in posting information online. This, along with loyalty to facts and training from news organizations, would be important skills in documenting and reporting social and political events. And speaking from her experience, she shared how enthusiastic ordinary citizens were in learning about the basics of journalism, enabling them to share stories of their community. “The citizen journalist does not make stories based on assignments, like us professional journalists; rather they report on the important things that matter to them, their communities, their lives. So, it is even more important for them to get the skills right.” she added.

Speaking of the role of citizen journalists in newsrooms, ABS-CBN Desk Editor and Producer Israel Malasa recounted how their newsroom broke the story of the Maguindanao Massacre in 2009, after they received information from a Bayan Patroller.

Malasa related how in November 2009, they received a photo from a Bayan Patroller of what were the bodies of the victims of the massacre. Working as the desk editor for the broadcast company’s Regional Network Group, based in Quezon City, he and his colleagues had to verify the information. “There was this photo that was sent to news by a Bayan Patroller. So, what we did was vet it. We called the authorities. The editors and reporters called up their various sources. And then it was confirmed that it was the massacre site,” he said. Without that courageous citizen journalist, he added, news of the horrendous incident would not have been known.

Tracing the roots of citizen journalism, Malasa illustrated how it began long before social media, when viewers of news programs such as TV Patrol, would send them information on community concerns such as ill-maintained roads and ditches, defective electricity posts and others. These stories were featured in a segment called Citizen Patrol. What made a difference between then and now was that the newsroom still needed to send a crew for these stories. “Back then what we would do is send a crew to the community. The crew would then engage the resident, the Citizen Patroller or citizen journalist, as how we call them now, get the facts and go to the authorities, interview, and then a solution about a particular problem is reached,” he said.

For Malasa, citizen journalists have contributed much to newsrooms, particularly with stories in different communities all over the country, which could not have been covered if information had not been provided to news organizations. “Citizen journalism, or information from the public, is in a way valuable, because it shows that it is not only the reporter who has knowledge of what is happening in society. If people on the ground are helping, if they are providing the facts, as long as it is substantiated, it is vetted, checked, it is an enormous contribution to a news organization,” said the UP Visayas alumnus.

Much has changed since then, as citizen journalists now can record their own materials and send their own information to the networks. For National Union of Journalists in the Philippines Chair Nonoy Espina, anyone can be a journalist as long as the person has the motivation, proper training and ethics. “[Ordinary] people can be very, very good journalists, if they have the motivation, and if they are given the skills to do it,” he said.

For Espina, training remains an important aspect of journalism which both citizen and professional journalists must have, as these are essentials in news gathering and crafting a story. “Putting a story together is not that easy. We might make it seem easy, but it actually isn’t. From gathering the facts to actually putting the story together,” he said.

And while citizen journalists may have undergone training, Espina, like Malasa, still suggests newsrooms must vet stories coming from the communities, as those in news organizations are more steeped in the professional standards of journalism and the legal regulations which affect the practice should there be lapses. Newsrooms, he also said, are liable, should libel cases arise from erroneous reporting. Referring to journalists and editors he said “If a story gets past you, especially an erroneous story, then you didn’t do your job. That is your fault. Then, you have to take responsibility for that.”

Espina however is quick to add that the collaboration between citizen journalists and professional journalists has been beneficial, particularly in situations which made it necessary for both to work together. “Actually, the best combination is the citizen journalist and the journalist. They should always work together. If one is separated from the other, then there is a disconnect [in the story they are working on],” he said.

Fact-checking vs disinformation

For investigative journalist and UP Associate Professor Yvonne Chua, one of the avenues where the public and journalism professionals best intersect in the age of disinformation is in fact-checking. As an educator, she has been teaching courses in fact-checking in the UP College of Mass Communication. “Fact-checking is increasingly becoming an important component of media literacy initiatives. In journalism education is an essential component,” she said.

Emphasizing journalism as a discipline of verification, Chua said the concept and practice of fact-checking in journalism has quickly evolved in recent years. In the past, the task of the practice of fact-checking in a news organization was undertaken by editors, who ensured the factual accuracy of the stories submitted by reporters before these were published. “The fact-checking we now refer to, has expanded to include verifying, and often debunking textual and visual claims, especially falsehoods, made by individuals, groups or institutions, ranging from our public officials, public figures, to netizens that produce user-generated content,” she said.

Sharing some notes from a recent study she was part of, Chua illustrated how the majority or 57% of the 19,621 respondents they had from all over the country, said disinformation is a serious problem. About 28% see it as somewhat of a concern. While 15% see no problem at all with disinformation. Among the age groups, she said those between ages 18 to 24 were more likely to view the proliferation of false information as serious.

The same age group also viewed disinformation as having possible effects on the elections. Despite these reactions, the respondents revealed they don’t verify news as much as they should. “Despite being aware that disinformation is a problem and could affect elections, the proportion of young Filipinos who have never verified the news or information that reaches them, is significantly higher than the 7% national average,” she added.

Also with regard to the results of the survey she and her colleagues conducted, the respondents defined ‘fake news’ as news which are bad for the president or the country, with a significant number of respondents from the 14 to 17 age group, agreeing. “It’s a sentiment that we know is often spouted by populist authoritarian leaders including our own,” she said.

Aside from concerns on disinformation, Chua said the study also revealed the lack of know-how among the respondents in how to verify news and information they came across. “This self-confessed gap in knowledge and skills certainly needs to be addressed,” said the journalism professor.

Viewing fact-checking as an invaluable tool for aspiring journalists, Chua views the course as essential in journalism education, particularly in the wake of the massive proliferation of disinformation and misinformation. The skills can either be included in teaching journalism ethics or as a stand-alone course. In recent years, she and her students have been involved in several projects where they verified the claims of political candidates and leaders. Among these are Tsek.ph  and Factrakers .

In the interest of keeping fact-checkers safe from possible threats and intimidation from those who may dislike their findings, Chua said it is important that those involved in these projects refrain from posting unvetted fact checks on their personal social media accounts. They must also process negative feedback on their stories. And they must also consider whether their stories should have bylines or not.

Campus publications and democracy

Discussing threats and intimidation of campuses, UP Associate Professor Diosa Labiste talked about how in recent years, disinformation has taken the form of hate speech and red tagging, particularly against the UP community. Citing studies she did with Chua, she illustrated the similarities between hate speech and red tagging and how these contribute to the proliferation of disinformation online.

For the former community journalist, red-tagging, much like disinformation, is made up of false or fabricated accusations disseminated by trolls online. It has from minimal to almost no basis in fact. It also vilifies activists, critics of the administration and journalists. And similar to hate speech, it uses threats, harassment, some even resulting to arrests and deaths. Labiste believes the vilification of the university community while serious, can be met with stories coming from campus journalists who continue to provide accurate stories of issues and concerns confronting its members.

Underscoring the need for news reports that are fact-checked and verified, Labiste said campus journalists can fill gaps left by mainstream media in the exigencies of day-to-day news reporting. These means, young journalists-in-training can provide content which cannot be found in the commercial media. “Some news are not so sexy for commercial media or mainstream media to cover. But campus press has been covering these issues,” she said.

Labiste said that aside from providing unique content on news events, campus press can pursue stories which provide differing perspectives, diverse issues and more vigorous discussions and debate. It also provides students with the capacity for citizen-witnessing, which blurs the line between news producer and news consumer, as well as that between a journalist and an advocate. “Campus journalism is a form of counter speech because it intervenes to help citizens and communities make sense of information amid lies and ‘fake news.’”

For John Nery, a journalist, columnist and educator, campus journalism remains a strong pillar in the struggle against disinformation, not only in colleges and universities, but also in society at large. “Yes, we should use our campus publications to discuss school concerns; but at the same time, we have to realize that we actually occupy a position of privilege, and that our campuses are surrounded by what we call communities at risk,” he said.

School publications, according to Nery, act not only as hubs for public discourse of those in the academic community, but they can also function as public spaces for discussions of social issues which confront a community. Using UP Visayas and other higher education institutions in Iloilo as examples, he said their publications can serve as venues for conversations. “Why shouldn’t the school publications of UP Visayas, of the University of Iloilo, of PHINMA, and other Iloilo-based schools, talk about what’s happening in Iloilo? And by doing so, turn their school publications into their own version of the public square,” he added.

Emphasizing the dynamism of the youth in campuses, Nery underscored their capacity for reinvention and innovation, particularly at a time when there is a need for stories and voices from various communities in the country. Highlighting the potentials of campus journalists and publications, he said they could “very easily turn our campus publications from campus loudspeakers into community megaphones. We can use our campus newspapers, our campus news websites, into a forum where we can talk about the concerns of the people who live around us, literally.”

Summing up the conflict between disinformation and democracy in the country, a veteran human rights lawyer, Chel Diokno, said that the country was already suffering from an epidemic even before the onset of the novel Coronavirus disease 2019 or COVID-19. “This is a different kind of epidemic. It did not affect our human bodies. But rather, the human body politic. And that really was what we experienced, the last few years. An epidemic of extra judicial killings. An epidemic of abuse of power. And an epidemic that uses fear and violence,” he said.

According to Diokno, the current health pandemic has only served to exacerbate the difficulties ordinary Filipinos face. But in the same breath, he also highlighted how social media platforms have also served to condemn some of the questionable actions of public officials in the implementation of regulations of the public health emergency. He quickly added how sadly enough, the situation has also illustrated how the law is implemented differently for different groups of people. “We saw how poor people who violated quarantine regulations were given the full brunt of the law. While those who were connected or associated with those in power, just got a pat, sometimes even a mere reprimand, or not even that,” he said.

Affirming his belief in the power of the people, the chairman of the Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG) said citizens must always: speak truth to power; remain vigilant even in difficult times; call out falsehoods particularly those disseminated online; and, ultimately hold those involved accountable for their actions. He was also quick to add that all these actions necessitate the involvement of individuals and communities from different backgrounds.

Expressing faith in the transformative power of the right to suffrage, Diokno said it is important for citizens to choose the right leaders for the country. And for that to happen, those in colleges and universities must call on everyone to properly exercise the right to vote. “At the end of the day, given the way our situation politically is run, we will have a golden opportunity, especially you, young people, to choose our future leaders, our next leaders, and to determine the future of our country, when the next elections come along.”

Aside from Diokno, Nery, UP Professors Labiste and Chua, the journalists Varona, Espina and Malasa, and Senator Hontiveros, former UP Student Regent and Youth Act Now Against Tyranny National Convenor Raoul Danniel Manuel also gave a talk on the role of the youth as defenders of press freedom. A UP alumna and ACCRALAW Associate Lawyer Kate Aubrey Hojilla also talked about press freedom and the Philippine Constitution.

Another UP alumna, Dr. Beverly Lorraine Ho, Director for Health Promotion of the Department of Health and Special Assistant to the Secretary for Universal Health Coverage, shared her experience in handling the department’s information campaign on the COVID 19 pandemic. Endy Bayuni, Jakarta Post Senior Editor and member of the Facebook Oversight Board, also talked about Campus Journalism and how the social media platform tackles disinformation.

Aside from the speakers, presentations on the proliferation of myths and misinformation on the Marcoses were also given. Miguel Reyes and Joel Ariate, Jr. of the UP Third World Studies Center talked about publications. While Dr. Earvin Cabalquinto of Deakin University, and Dr. Cheryll Ruth Soriano of De La Salle University Manila talked about revisionists videos online.

The 3rd National Conference on Democracy and Disinformation was hosted by UP Visayas on February 22, 24 and 26, 2021 as a project with the Consortium on Democracy and Disinformation. The consortium is a network of academics, journalists, bloggers and civil society groups. Among those which support the network are the University of the Philippines, the Ateneo de Manila University, De La Salle Philippines and Holy Angel University. For more information on the consortium, visit https://fightdisinfo.ph/ .

The conference was also held in partnership with MOVE.PH, Daily Guardian, UPV Division of Humanities, UPV Information and Publications Office and DYUP 102.7 FM. For videos of the conference, please visit https://www.facebook.com/DandD2021 .

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What do Lorde, Shrek, and the Museum of Fine Arts Boston have in common? They’re all subjects I’ve written about for the Arts section of The Harvard Crimson!

The Crimson is Harvard’s independent daily newspaper, and it’s entirely written and produced by students. While classes, activities, and campus jobs have come and go, The Arts Board of The Crimson has remained a constant in my college life.

My high school may not have had a newspaper, but by the time I graduated I was certain that I wanted to be a journalist.

I had been bit by the political bug (much to my apolitical parents’ chagrin) and spent hours on hours reading all the longform and political journalism I could find. I searched The Atlantic, Politico, CNN, The New York Times, and other outlets for interesting pieces — frequently exhausting each publication’s free article allowance before the first week of the month was up.

The summer before my senior year of high school I was fortunate enough to participate in the Princeton University Summer Journalism Program, a summer “bootcamp” of sorts that introduces low-income students to the field of journalism as well as guides them through the college admissions process. I left PUSJP with a game plan for my future:

Step 1: Get into college.

Step 2. Write for my college newspaper.

Easy enough, right? I’ll spare you the lengthy details on Step 1. After a flurry of SAT exams, college essay edits, and last-minute finishing of my Common Application I was accepted to Harvard in December of my senior year of high school. As soon as I got to campus I made a point to find out when The Crimson’s first Open House would be.

I remember being nervous as I walked up to the unassuming brick building on Plympton St. in Cambridge — a stone’s throw away from Harvard Yard — but the feeling went away as soon as I saw the smiling faces waiting to greet me at the door.

I was rushed through a quick tour of the building the ended in a large meeting room where each board (News, Editorial, Arts, Design, etc.) gave their “elevator pitches” for joining their section of The Crimson. While I had walked in the building with plans of becoming the next big Politico writer, I felt myself compelled by the friendly faces and welcoming attitude of the Arts Board representatives. I went to my first Arts meeting the next week and never looked back.

This is the photo for my satirical piece: "My Guilty Pleasure is the Crimson Arts Internal Service Error." Photo by: Kathryn S. Kuhar

Whether your idea of “art” is the Metropolitan Opera or Cardi B’s “I Do” the Arts Board will welcome you with open arms. It didn’t matter that I had never written for a newspaper before — there were weekly lessons led by training directors that taught me everything I needed to know to write features, reviews, and blog posts on topics I care about.

I found myself exploring parts of Boston, reading books, visiting museums, researching artists, and attending events that I otherwise wouldn’t have known existed had I not picked up stories about them.

The best part is that all of these events (film screenings, concerts, and more) are free! As reporters, we get press passes to events and advance copies of books/albums in order to review and write stories about them. For this reason I’ve been able to see more concerts and movies, read more books, and attend more events than I otherwise would be able to afford to — and The Crimson offers financial aid too! Students who receive financial aid can apply to be paid for their work at The Crimson in lieu of having to choose between writing for the newspaper or working an on campus job.

The Arts Board is more than just a section of the newspaper, it’s a little family. We host fun screenings of movies, board game nights, and Oscar/Grammy/Tony viewing parties. I became close friends with the editors I worked with on my pieces and with my fellow writers. If you asked me my first day on campus if I thought I would ever write a 3,000+ word investigative story, cover the 2018 Boston Calling Music Festival, or write a biweekly column of deeply personal essays on music I would’ve laughed. The Arts Board has given me these opportunities and so many more, and I’m so excited to see what moments and memories the next two years will bring.

Allison Class of '21 Alumni

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Campus journalism: A stepping stone for future professionals

An increasing number of university students are taking up campus journalism gigs despite not having a formal journalism background.

Between 2007 and 2011, Rajib Nandy, a dedicated student of Communication and Journalism at Chittagong University, emerged as a formidable force as he took on the role of a campus correspondent for two national dailies. Undeterred by the absence of a salary, he fearlessly covered a wide spectrum of campus events, exploring politics, crime, education, health, culture, research and more.

Rajib left no stone unturned in his journalistic pursuits, crafting several exclusive stories. 

Notably, he revealed a shocking tale, exposing the construction of an opulent rest house for a then-president of the country, concealed under the guise of the university's convocation preparations, with a staggering cost of over Tk1 crore.

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But there's more to his own story. As a campus journalist, Rajib had to overcome many challenges. In 2009, when he was a third-year student, a defamation case was filed against him after he broke another exclusive story about some allegations made about a professor at the university. 

At that time, Rajib worked for Samakal and armed with solid evidence in the form of documents, he received unwavering support from his editors. After enduring a year and a half of legal battles, he emerged victorious in the defamation case.

In 2010, he also covered the exclusive story of the world's last amphibious species, Fejervarya asmati. Rajib's exceptional work earned him the recognition of his editor, who doubled his salary as a testament to his remarkable talent.

Amid all this, Rajib maintained his grades and found a way to be the top student for the four years of his bachelor's degree. 

Now he is an assistant professor in the same department. Besides teaching, he is also a researcher and contributes news and opinion pieces to several media outlets in Bangladesh and India.  

To Rajib, campus journalism is a stepping stone for future professionals. 

"The experience of student journalism can be a great benefit, whether they [students] keep working in journalism after graduation or switch to other fields like communication, public relations, administration, research or teaching," he says. 

"To become a campus journalist, it is important to have good news sense, an ever-curious mindset, and the ability to tell a story engagingly, irrespective of the medium," Rajib adds. 

Current scenario of campus journalism 

An increasing number of university students are taking up campus journalism despite not having a formal journalism background. This surge is driven by the high demand for campus journalists within the dynamic media industry.

Student politics have always been of great interest to Bangladeshi audiences, and anything affecting university students is inherently linked to the well-being of the entire nation.

"And now that there are so many new newspapers, TV channels and online portals, university students are getting more opportunities to become campus journalists than before," explains Sirajul Islam Rubel, former general secretary of Dhaka University Journalists Association.

Nishat Parvez, an assistant professor of Journalism and Media Studies at Jahangirnagar University, also believes that campus journalism has been thriving for quite some time now. 

"In recent years, campus journalists have been very active. At Jahangirnagar University, they are unearthing administrative corruption, ragging, environmental pollution, problems of the students and several other issues through their reports and pushing the authorities for change," she says. 

However, one major complaint is that campus journalists are brutally underpaid. Most begin their careers without any salary, especially when working for online portals or relatively unknown media houses. Even when appointed by leading media houses and brought under the payscale, monthly salary rarely surpasses Tk15,000.

Perks of becoming a campus journalist

The biggest advantage of being involved in campus journalism lies in the fact that it prepares one to become a full-fledged journalist later on in life.

Suzon Ali, former president of the Rajshahi University Journalist Association, majored in English Language and Literature. But thanks to his experience as a campus journalist, he has become the Rajshahi district staff correspondent for New Age. "Had I waited for my student life to be over and then joined any media house to pursue my dream, it would have made my journey much harder," says Suzon. 

According to Shabnam Azim, associate professor of Mass Communication and Journalism at Dhaka University, the current curriculum covers everything a student needs to become a journalist.  

Still, she believes that the practical application of theoretical knowledge always helps. So, teachers always encourage students if they pursue a part-time career in campus journalism. 

"It provides the students with valuable experience," Shabnam says.

Manjur Hossain Mahi, a third-year student of Mass Communication and Journalism at Dhaka University, shares the same perspective. While acknowledging that campus journalism does not bring him significant financial rewards, he views the time invested in this profession as a valuable investment.

As a campus journalist, he is expanding his network by getting acquainted with new people, visiting new places and sharpening his communication skills. 

Additionally, he can also keep a tab on current affairs. 

The preliminary test of the 45th BCS took place in May, and Mahi claims he was familiar with most of the general knowledge and current affairs questions. "Because I covered some of those stories myself!" he says. 

Campus journalism also provides students with a respectable identity and brings them closer to their teachers. 

"Most people on the campus keep us in high regard, and teachers also pay extra attention to us," says Shakil Hosen, a third-year student of Political Science at the same university, who has also taken up the role of a campus correspondent for Dhaka Times. 

Some argue campus journalism has lost its spark. One of them is Badruddoza Babu, a leading investigative journalist of the country who also teaches part-time at Dhaka and Jahangirnagar universities. 

In the early 2000s, during his student years, he made his mark in journalism while working for the prestigious weekly magazine Shaptahik 2000. His captivating coverage of Dhaka University included a groundbreaking exposé on concealed firearms found within the residential halls. 

But he thinks such news coverage in recent times has become few and far between.

"There was a time when a campus reporter had at least one front page lead in the national dailies every month. But lately, I do not see much in-depth reporting by them, as they often remain preoccupied with covering trivial events and political press conferences," he says. 

Campus journalism has other challenges too. 

Foremost, it is almost like a 24/7 job, and a campus journalist always has to be on their feet, if need be. And that can hamper one's study. 

"Sometimes after a long day's work, I sit down to grab a meal, but suddenly my phone rings and I hear something big is happening on campus. At that point, I must run immediately to cover the news, even if that results in my studies getting compromised," shares Mahi. 

Meeting deadlines also takes a huge toll on them. They are asked to submit a piece of news by 6:30 pm. But some events take place after the time frame. Then they face the challenge of submitting the news by 10 pm for the second edition. 

Being a journalist can also put students up against the administration and student wing of the ruling party. "I faced threats of getting jailed several times because I tried to bring up the truth, which didn't go well with the people of the administration and the ruling party," says Suzon. 

There have even been several reports of campus journalists getting physically assaulted while simply trying to do their job. Sometimes it also becomes challenging to gather information from the higher authorities. 

In many cases, reporters are asked to apply through the Right to Information Act. But that is a very complex and time-consuming process, and campus journalists cannot afford to wait that long for one story.

"So, it is better to establish reliable sources among the higher authorities so that we can gather necessary information quickly," says Mahi. 

Shabnam also admits that campus journalists have to weather pressures from different sectors. "There are many risks for them. But my advice for them would be: never surrender to power or lose objectivity, rather try to handle every situation technically." 

Meanwhile, some students also lose interest in the job after a certain period and decide to switch to another profession. 

"But I think it's good that they are making up their mind while they're still young. Campus journalists are exposed to the harsh realities of life sooner, so they have plenty of time left to pursue something else," says Rubel. 

What opportunities are there for female students?

Female students are still reluctant to become journalists, notes Nishat Parvez. "Recent studies suggest the number is even lower in the management level than the entry level," she adds. 

Jakia Jahan, a lecturer of Mass Communication and Journalism, attributes religious fundamentalism as well as women's communication apprehension and lack of interest in the profession to the low rate.

However, a handful of female students are showing enthusiasm to become campus journalists nowadays.  

Autoshi Sen, a second-year student of Mass Communication and Journalism at Dhaka University, is the first female student from her department to become a campus journalist. 

"It was far from easy. Many doubted my abilities and said I wouldn't be fit for the job. I got a job from Naya Shatabdi, a relatively new newspaper. Though I have already proved my worth, bigger media houses are reluctant to offer me a job," says Autoshi. 

Authoshi had to face harassment several times for being a female reporter. Many people are still not ready to accept that female journalists can work and compete neck and neck with their male counterparts. 

However, thanks to her role as a campus journalist, Autoshi has recently got the opportunity to become a presenter at Bangladesh Television. She expects that following in her footsteps, more female students will become campus journalists.

Marjan Akter, a Master's student of Communication and Journalism at Chittagong University, shares a similar experience as she serves as a campus correspondent for Samakal.

From her family to her surroundings, everyone was sceptical. They said it's not a women's job. The campus is one hour away from her home in Chattogram, and they asked how she could attend events that are taking place in the evening.

Marjan also had to face harassment from the student wing of the ruling party once when she went to cover one of their events. 

"But after doing this job for one and a half years, I have become more confident and mentally stronger than ever," says Marjan.  

Career / Campus Journalism

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Campus Newspapers: Withstanding the Journalism Digital Crisis

By Maggie Eastland

Published: July 31, 2021

When I arrived on the Notre Dame campus this August, I noticed something that I had not seen a single time all summer—a printed newspaper. The Observer student newspaper was littered throughout the campus. In an era when journalism is shifting production to online media and websites, the prevalence of the printed newspaper on Notre Dame’s campus seemed like a step back in time. A bit of a technophobe myself, I relished reading the printed newspaper; however, I couldn't help but wonder why this campus newspaper had not been swallowed by online media like its mainstream paper counterparts. Is there some advantage campus papers have over mainstream papers that allows them to thrive, or are these printed copies simply prolonging their inevitable extinction? The answer to this question is important for college students involved in the campus newspaper, future journalists, and even current journalists who can learn from the unique situation of the campus newspaper. Despite the ever-changing journalism industry, the campus newspaper, both online and in-print, finds more success than the traditional newspaper because it caters to a specific audience, reaps the benefits of an advertising advantage, serves an educational purpose that encourages donations, and maintains readership by offering papers for free and highlighting local, personal news stories. For these reasons, campus newspapers will continue to thrive, though with some integration of new technology mediums.

In the past few decades, mainstream news has taken a huge hit to profit. Pew Research Center shows that advertising and circulation revenues have dropped steeply since 2006 with very little revenue coming from printed papers (Barthel) and employment in U.S. newsrooms has dropped by half between 2008 and 2019 (Grieco). Despite these industry trends, campus newspapers don’t seem to be laying off staff or reducing circulation at the same drastic rate. In fact, according to Rutgers journalism professor Steve Miller, Alloy Media+Marketing New York “found that 82% of students read their campus newspaper, a rate that more than doubles most major metro dailies” (Miller 10). Despite a need for additional, more recent studies, Miller’s work on campus newspapers sharply contrasts the trends shown by Pew Research Center’s data for mainstream papers, leading to the conclusion that campus newspapers have some inherent advantage over mainstream newspapers.

Several factors set campus newspapers apart and allow them to continue successful circulation. First, college campuses are composed of a very particular audience. Every student on a college campus is pursuing higher education, meaning they have already displayed a thirst for knowledge and an interest in the world. Naturally, this population will be more inclined to read the news, and thus, advertisers are more likely to pay for ads in the campus paper. Data from the Pew Research Center demonstrates how newspaper readership increases as individuals reach higher levels of education. The study compared the readership of high school graduates, those who completed some college, college graduates, those who completed some post graduate, and post graduates from 1999 to 2006. Although readership as a whole sloped downward, findings showed that a higher level of education correlated to higher levels of readership (“Daily Newspaper Readership by Education”). This conclusion suggests one possible reason that college newspapers have survived longer than mainstream papers -- campus newspapers have a concentrated audience of active, engaged individuals who have already chosen the path to higher education. Miller’s study corroborates this evidence for the college newspaper, finding that “more than half (55%) of students reported reading the newspaper in the last week, and close to 30% reported reading every issue” (Miller 10). Journalism scholars Jeremy Lipschultz and Michael Hilt confirm Miller’s findings in their work Predicting Newspaper Readership on the Campus Community . After conducting a phone survey of 402 respondents, some students, some teachers, and some employees, Lipschultz and Hilt concluded that a large majority, “92.0% of students, 97.9% of faculty, and 94.1% of staff reported reading the community daily newspaper” (Lipschultz & Hilt 1052). Based on these numbers, the researchers also noticed that individuals with more education were more likely to read the paper (Lipschultz & Hilt 1053), further proving data from the Pew Research Center. Although the report was compiled in 1999, the data still depicts the high level of readership on college campuses today, especially given the fact that electronic and other media were available to students and professors during that time. Taken together, the Pew Research Center data and the evidence of high readership from Lipschultz, Hilt, and Miller show that the specific audience available on a college campus contributes to the continued success and high readership levels of campus newspapers.

This engaged, filtered audience makes it easier for the paper to maintain strong readership; however, it also helps the campus paper make more revenue through advertising. Miller mentions how only 13% of college students reported avoiding advertisements and 80% of students actually report responding to ads (Miller 10). This research suggests that access to a targeted audience, such as a specific group of college students, strongly appeals to advertisers. Despite their limited income, college students are still large spenders, making them an attractive market to advertisers. Additionally, many companies seek to advertise to college-age communities because they are brand-loyal, geographically stable, and responsive to ads (“Marketing to College Students”). Knowing such a high percentage of readers will notice and respond to advertisements, companies are naturally more willing to pay for ads in campus newspapers. Based on published advertising rates for The Observer , national companies are willing to pay up to $1240 for a full-page printed ad and up to $12 per thousand page views for an online ad (“Rate Card 2019-2020” 3). In contrast, ad revenues for mainstream newspapers have dried up as companies turn to other avenues of Internet advertising, which provide a larger audience and more opportunities to target specific consumers (Kuttner). Campus newspapers, on the other hand, still have some appeal for advertisers over alternate Internet ads because they guarantee the ad will reach a specific population of college students. The combination of a targeted audience and high level of readership helps campus papers remain afloat while traditional papers, facing a much broader, less specified audience, rapidly lose ad revenue and subscription fee profits. Advertisers realize that college students still read the newspaper, and many want to access that specific audience; thus, campus newspapers benefit from these ad revenues and maintain strong circulation.

On top of the concentrated audience, high level of readership, and potential for advertising, campus newspapers have yet another advantage over traditional newspapers that is a direct result of their role in journalism education. While most academics agree that the modes of journalism are changing, many hold fast to the idea that what characterizes good journalism remains unmoved. In his discussion on adapting journalistic education to meet new technologies, journalism academic Martin Hirst contends that while social media skills help a journalist succeed, writing, editing, note-taking, and interviewing skills are still essential (Hirst 447). These critical skills are best formulated and practiced by learning how to write for an actual newspaper. As Roger Pace, Ph.D., of the Communication Studies Department at the University of San Diego is quoted in a University Wire Article, “the best of the online news sources are staffed by trained reporters who were schooled in journalism and ethics at daily papers” (“Fewer Newspapers on Campus”). This quote suggests that the use of print journalism on college campuses is a necessary step that allows students to apply traditional journalistic practices and principles in future digital jobs. For example, the strict deadlines, formatting, and finality of a printed newspaper teach journalism students valuable lessons and skills that can be applied in non-traditional journalism jobs. Maria Leontaras, Editor-In-Chief for The Observer highlights the fact that newspapers “serve as an excellent way for students to learn about journalism and hone their skills if they are looking to pursue a career in the field after graduation” (Leontaras). Leontaras, Pace, and Hirst all reach a similar consensus that the educational aspects of the campus newspaper are very important, suggesting another reason for the campus newspaper’s success. The learning opportunity presented by print newspapers as well as their ability to leave an important historical record (Leontaras) provide another reason for their continued success and point to another source of revenue generated by donors who want to support the education of future journalists.

While students learn valuable lessons from writing and editing a print newspaper, opportunities for students to practice digital media journalism should not be overlooked, especially since Generation Z, the generation of students in high school and college right now, rely heavily on social media for their news. As one article claims, “a stunning 82% of Gen Z and younger Millennials include among their primary sources Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Buzzfeed, Instagram, Snapchat and their desktop feed” (Myers). A recent journal article on the news habits of Generation Z confirms Myers’s conclusion by proposing that “Gen Z’s are interested in news and follow news, even though they principally access it through social media” (Click & Schwartz 7). Ignoring the high demand for online news from the college population would be a missed opportunity for the campus newspaper. At the University of Notre Dame, The Observer capitalizes on both print and digital circulation by releasing a printed newspaper three times per week, posting all printed stories on their website, and highlighting top stories on Instagram in conjunction with every print release (Leontaras). Additional evidence shows that campus newspapers such as The Observer once again beat traditional newspapers when it comes to success in the online news sphere.

Research on the use of digital journalism, specifically Twitter, on college campuses shows that campus newspapers are adapting more smoothly than traditional newspapers. Twitter investigators Kris Boyle and Carol Zuenger analyzed the Twitter pages of 25 award-winning campus newspapers, filtering results to determine the “frequency, content, and interactivity of the tweets” (Boyle & Zuenger 12). Unlike mainstream papers, the number of tweets from campus news organizations was strongly correlated with the number of followers, showing that Twitter journalism is more effective on college campuses than it is in mainstream media (Boyle & Zuegner 16). While mainstream newspapers release tweet after tweet, their following does not grow in response. Campus newspapers, on the other hand, face a very responsive audience, gaining more followers the more frequently they tweet. This once again suggests a fundamental difference between audiences, and shows that the active audience on the college campus engages with both printed campus newspapers and digital campus news. In addition, the researchers found that Tweet frequency was positively correlated to publication frequency, implying that newspapers build their Tweets around their print papers (Boyle & Zuegner 16). This style of online journalism mirrors The Observer ’s Instagram posting schedule and supports the claim that paper journalism skills supersede into non-print media, adding value to the campus newspaper. While campus newspapers might begin to use more digital tools, they still experience much greater success with these online platforms than mainstream newspapers due to their targeted audience. Many colleges manage a respectable paper circulation in addition to regular posts on their website, Instagram, and Twitter pages. This development and evidence from Boyle and Zuenger implies that the fundamental advantages of a campus newspaper—audience and educational value—impact both print and digital news formats. For most schools, including Notre Dame, that print newspaper still serves as the centering and grounding force from which digital media arise.

One more key difference between campus newspapers and mainstream newspapers is that campus newspapers are free, or at least not charged for by issue, and stocked around every corner on campus while traditional newspapers require a subscription fee. This means that campus newspapers have to make up even more revenue in advertising and donations in order to offset the free papers. In recent years, the prevalence of social media and online news has tended the narrative that news should be free, but this idea remains somewhat unrealistic. After all, printing papers and paying staff naturally costs a lot of money. Despite the inherent costs of producing a newspaper, evidence shows that college students consider subscription costs a barrier to entry in reading traditional newspapers. After all, why would college students pay for a New York Times subscription when they can simply catch up on all the current events via their Twitter feed? If traditional newspapers were free at the time of reading, like campus newspapers, students would be much more likely to read and engage with them. One survey conducted at the Rochester Institute of Technology mentions how “about 140 colleges in the United States and Canada are experimenting with providing papers to college students” through the College Readership Program in order to boost readership of national news on college campuses (Williams 25). An article published in The Chronicle of Higher Education explores this movement in greater detail through the examination of a specific case study of the College Readership Program at the University of San Diego. The journal article, titled “Free Newspapers Prompt Boom in Campus Readership,” describes how President Graham B. Spanier “arranged to stock the dormitories at all nine residential campuses with open distribution racks carrying the New York Times , USA Today , and the local newspaper” (Reinsberg). The costs are offset by an additional $13 added to room and board costs, and college students now read the mainstream news more often than ever. As the article quantifies, “nearly three-quarters of students read one of the three commercial daily newspapers regularly, at least in part because of their availability” (Reinsberg). This specific example shows that college students take an interest in news; however, the costs of print newspapers present a strong incentive not to read, especially when most news can be sourced for free via social media. This highlights yet another difference between campus and mainstream newspapers that accounts for the relative success of the campus newspaper. Campus papers are free and readily available while mainstream papers require a subscription fee. Even large news outlets recognize the opportunity presented by the captive audience on a college campus and want to capitalize on the unique situation. Ongoing debate surrounds the Collegiate Readership Program as some schools, such as Vanderbilt University, argue that it will destroy campus newspapers and the opportunities they provide for students (Reinsberg). That debate is beyond the scope of this paper; however, the disagreement only testifies to the valuable niche campus newspapers hold and their special advantages in the current news environment.

An article titled “Campus newspapers: hard times, hard choices,” published in the Gateway Journalism Review , highlights this special environment for newspapers, claiming that “the college press has long existed in a kind of alternate universe from the one its commercial counterparts inhabit,” largely due to a concentrated population of educated, involved students (Fiddler). Citing circulation reduction and online shifts at many colleges and universities, the article later argues that this idyllic market for campus news will not last (Fiddler). There is some credibility to the claim that campus newspapers will eventually face the same crisis currently paralyzing traditional newspapers; however, the relatively stable audience demographics, the education-driven approach, and the niche for local news point to the opposite conclusion. While colleges may shift the majority of production to online media, there is no strong evidence to believe that campus newspapers are doomed. Colleges seem to be actually growing more selective in recent years, micro-filtering the audience even further. Additionally, multiple sources contend that Gen-Z’s still have a strong interest in current events despite their changing preference for method of news delivery (Click & Schwartz and Myers). Both of these developments suggest that campus newspapers are not going anywhere. To further disprove the idea that campus newspapers will soon face extinction, the study conducted at the Rochester Institute of Technology finds that college students prefer reading local news in print as opposed to any other type of news (Williams 6). Editor of The Observer , Maria Leontaras emphasizes that the personal appeal of the campus newspaper adds to its popularity, writing in an email interview, “Students also grab physical copies when they are featured in the paper -- families love them” (Leontaras). Since campus newspapers specialize in reporting local campus happenings, the preference for local news in print, presents another reason why campus newspapers will continue to thrive. Finally, the ultimate educational goals of the campus newspaper ensure it will succeed thanks to benefactors and donors who provide the revenue needed to teach students the art of journalism.

Leontaras explains that The Observer receives funding through donations, a small fee added to student costs, and ad revenues both online and in-print (Leontaras). These sources of revenue identify the specific advantages of the campus newspapers for colleges around the nation. First, campus newspapers receive donations because of their educational purpose that mainstream newspapers do not benefit from. In addition, campus newspapers can subtly add a fee to students’ upfront costs so that campus papers are free and accessible at any point during the year. Finally, campus newspapers benefit from a specific, engaged audience that attracts advertisers and increases readership. These advantages and the revenue provided through a unique combination of sources allows The Observer and other student newspapers to remain relevant even as the storm of digital media and declining ad revenues threatens to destroy the outside, real-world newspapers. Understanding these reasons for success will allow current college students who are involved with campus newspapers to continue meeting the needs of their local audience and soliciting supporters for donations in order to preserve the campus newspaper for generations to come. Examining the special case of the campus newspaper and highlighting its causes of success also restores confidence in the campus newspaper’s future for current and future participants and may even provide valuable insight for how traditional newspapers can achieve similar success and stability. For example, mainstream newspapers may want to invest more resources into micro-targeted newspapers to increase readership and create a more attractive audience for advertisers. Traditional newspapers might even attempt to solicit more donations from philanthropists who understand the importance of responsible reporting. Either way, the specific success of the campus newspaper holds important implications for its direct participants and for the journalism industry at large.

Works Cited

Barthel, Michael. “Trends and Facts on Newspapers: State of the News Media.” Pew Research Center's Journalism Project , 4 Feb. 2020, www.journalism.org/fact-sheet/newspapers/.

Boyle, Kris, and Carol Zuegner. “Big Tweets on Campus: College Newspapers’ Use of Twitter.” Teaching Journalism and Mass Communication , vol. 5, no. 1, 2015, pp. 12–21.

Click, Kevin, and Neil Schwartz. “Trending Now: News Habits of Generation Z.” SSRN Electronic Journal , 2018, doi:10.2139/ssrn.3408021.

“Daily Newspaper Readership by Education.” Pew Research Center , 12 Mar. 2007, www.journalism.org/numbers/daily-newspaper-readership-by-education/.

"Fewer Newspapers on Campus." University Wire , Apr 06, 2017 . ProQuest , http://proxy.library.nd.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/1885956910?accountid=12874.

Fidler, Eric. "Campus newspapers: hard times, hard choices." Gateway Journalism Review , vol. 42, no. 326, 2012, p. 12+. Gale Academic OneFile Select , https://link.gale.com/apps/

doc/A293666471/ EAIM?u=nd_ref&sid=EAIM&xid=eb9af3eb. Accessed 8 Oct. 2020.

Grieco, Elizabeth. “10 Charts about America's Newsrooms.” Pew Research Center , Pew Research Center, 30 May 2020, www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/28/10

-charts-about-americas-newsrooms/.

Hirst, Martin, and Greg Treadwell. “Blogs Bother Me.” Journalism Practice , vol. 5, no. 4, 2011, pp. 446–461., doi:10.1080/17512786.2011.555367.

Kuttner, Robert, and Hildy Zenger. “Saving the Free Press From Private Equity.” The American Prospect , 27 Dec. 2017, prospect.org/health/saving-free-press-private-equity/.

Leontaras, Maria. Personal email interview. 13 October 2020.

Lipschultz, Jeremy H, and Michael L Hilt. Psychological Reports, 1999, pp. 1051–1053, Predicting Newspaper Readership on the Campus Community .

“Marketing to College Students.” Business.com , 2020, www.business.com/articles/marketing-to-college-students/.

Miller, Steve. “Study: College Newspapers Are the Ad Rage on Campus .” Brandweek , 2008, www-proquest-com.proxy.library.nd.edu/docview/218083335/5E6FD9A29C96485BPQ/

2?accountid=12874.

Myers, Jack. “How Generation Z Gets Their News.” The Ripon Society , 16 Feb. 2018, riponsociety.org/article/how-generation-z-gets-their-news/.

“Rate Card 2019-2020.” The Observer , 1 Aug. 2019, ndsmcobserver.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/1568167994-11032662657c922.pdf.

Reisberg, Leo. “Free Newspapers Prompt Boom in Campus Readership.” The Chronicle of Higher Education , 23 July 2020, www.chronicle.com/article/free-newspapers-prompt-boom-in-campus-readership/.

Williams, Kristin A. “Students' Self-Reported Preferences for Print and Online Newspapers.” RIT Scholar Works , Rochester Institute of Technology , 2003, scholarworks.rit.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3553&context=theses.

Complete a reverse-outline of this essay and analyze the essay’s structure . What is the purpose and function of each paragraph? How are the ideas sequenced? Which ideas get the most space in the essay, and why?

How does this student writer develop their ethos? Point to specific sentences that demonstrate the writer’s trustworthiness, character, and investment in the topic. Then, compare these moves to another research paper published in this edition of Fresh Writing; how are the approaches to cultivating ethos similar? How are they different?

Maggie Eastland

Maggie Eastland is a Michigan native living in Pasquerilla West Hall. She is majoring in Finance and English with a minor in Journalism, Ethics, and Democracy. Her interest in the journalism industry and The Observer student newspaper spurred her research for this essay. Since writing her essay on campus newspapers and community journalism, she joined The Observer and currently works as an Associate News Editor. "Campus Newspapers: Withstanding the Journalism Digital Crisis" examines and reevaluates the supposed death of news in the context of college campus; however, as an aspiring journalist, Maggie hopes her findings can have implications for the industry as a whole and allow news outlets to remain in the business of disseminating truth. Maggie thanks Dr. Erin McLaughlin, her Writing & Rhetoric professor, for encouraging her and offering advice throughout the research and writing process.

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CAMPUS JOURNALISM: AN OVERVIEW

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[OPINION] Campus journalists, now is the time to speak up

Already have Rappler+? Sign in to listen to groundbreaking journalism.

This is AI generated summarization, which may have errors. For context, always refer to the full article.

Recently, campus journalists all over the country were mad at one thing — and no, it’s not what you expect.

The Department of Education (DepEd) announced earlier that the National Schools Press Conference (NSPC) and Palarong Pambansa – its annual flagship competitions – will be canceled next year because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

This was announced the same day the National Telecommunications Commission served ABS-CBN a cease and desist order to operate, forcing the latter to go off-air that night.

I expected campus journalists and school paper advisers (SPAs) — so-called purveyors of truth and upholders of the Journalist’s Creed — to be proactive in speaking out against a move curtailing the largest TV network’s right to free speech.

While some publications released a statement supporting ABS-CBN, others — most especially NSPC-winning students and school publications — chose to be silent.

As someone who has spent years in campus journalism, I think I can explain why.

Campus journalism has a long and proud history in the Philippines, empowered by the Campus Journalism Act of 1991.

The NSPC has been around for decades now, training young journalists in the hopes of seeing them work in the media as they grow up.

It grew bigger throughout the years, tapping into the competitive spirit of each delegate in the same way you would see in other competitions like the Palarong Pambansa.  Schools, divisions, and regions invest money, time, and resources to produce NSPC-quality students and publications in the hopes of winning.

Despite growing interest in NSPC, I personally believe that this competitive spirit destroys the essence of campus journalism in and of itself. Make no mistake: I have no qualms regarding regions engaging in friendly (and sometimes not-so-friendly) competition, for I have enjoyed it too when I was in high school. But this competitive spirit strays us away from the fact that journalism is essentially a public service and must be treated as such.

Campus journalists treat campus journalism as if it is just another competition – like the Palaro or the  Metrobank- MTAP -DepEd  Math  Challenge . It is not.  Because of this thinking, campus journalists do not see themselves as “purveyors of truth,” but as mere players in a game that they must win.

The Journalist’s Creed that they recite during opening ceremonies is not a pledge of allegiance to a public service; they see it as an oath to sportsmanship. They equate their worth not through their contributions to the community; they equate it through their medals and trophies.

Seminars about campus journalism do not focus on how to speak truth to power; most focus on how to win the competition. (READ: A message to campus journalists: Your voice matters more than ever )

The main problem of campus journalism (at least, for elementary and secondary levels) is the way that it is packaged and presented to the education system.

I must confess that we are “programmed” to chase after awards, not after the values that we could learn in joining press conferences. I am not blaming school paper advisers (I love my own SPAs), because they, too, are motivated, yet disillusioned, by the notion that success lies in medals, trophies, and certificates.

We are just victims of a system that presents campus journalism as a mere ego-booster and medal mill for students and advisers alike. 

This is the reason we do not see many campus journalists speaking out against Duterte’s war on drugs, or even about ABS-CBN’s struggle for press freedom. For some, campus journalism only exists during the press conference season. They think of themselves more as contest journalists than effective campus journalists. 

Despite these things, I personally believe that not all hope is lost.

We need our young writers to lose the notion that the only way to speak truth to power is to win medals and bring honor. (READ: Campus publications call for autonomy, protection of press freedom )

While there will be no NSPC next year, this doesn’t mean campus journalism will be gone as well.

More than ever, it is imperative for us, young writers, to speak louder and air our sentiments at a time when our freedoms are being curtailed. Campus journalism goes beyond the medals and certificates you reap. We exist because  we want to produce socially aware champions of media literacy. 

For school paper advisers and trainers, begin your training and seminars with this question: Why and for whom do you write? (READ: [OPINION] What the Ampatuan Massacre verdict means to a campus journalist )

With or without press conference season, student writers should always speak up.

That time is now.   – Rappler.com

John Paul Punzalan is an advocate for pro-student and pro-people campus journalism. He was the co-founder of Assortedge, a social media youth organization. Currently, he is taking up BS Business Administration at the University of the Philippines-Diliman.

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• University & Campus Life

Campus Times Receives Gold Award

Campus Times , the university’s student newspaper, was recently ranked as one of the highest tier college news publications in the United States. It earned the Columbia Scholastic Journalism Association’s Gold Medal award for overall journalism excellence for Newspaper/Online Hybrid Publications for the 2022-2023 academic year.

This kind of recognition should come as no surprise, seeing as this is the publication’s 19 th time receiving a gold medal award in the last two decades.

Professor of journalism and chief advisor to the Campus Times, Elizabeth Zwerling, is entering her 23rd year teaching at the university. Her leadership has helped guide her already-brilliant students to greatness.

“I am incredibly proud of them,” she said. “Every year, our students come into class with varying degrees of experience and understanding of journalism, but they jump in immediately and troubleshoot and learn through a whole system of peer mentoring.”

Zwerling steers a tight ship: the publication’s news cycle is fast-paced and deadline-driven in an attempt to mimic working conditions students will see in the journalism field post-graduation. Every student on the Campus Times staff is expected to publish one story a week, which amounts to a total of 27 weekly issues in an academic year.

For their 2022-2023 reporting, Campus Times received a score of 964 out of 1,000 points for depth and breadth of coverage, visual components, editing and writing. Their high score year’s gold medal received a distinction of “All Columbian”.

Eric Borer, Campus Times’ operations manager and photography advisor, witnessed the publication flourish during his more than 30 years at the university. According to Borer, it’s exciting to see student work repeatedly acknowledged and rewarded for high quality.

“It’s a good indicator of the quality program we have and the education we are able to give students,” he said. “Year after year, we produce good journalists who become excellent professionals in the industry.”

The University of La Verne is proud to support and encourage students toward academic and career excellence. The Campus Times is a laboratory publication for newspaper production, journalism, and photography courses. See full list of awards won throughout the years. To read some of the award-winning journalism mentioned, visit the Campus Times website  or find physical copies of their publications across our main campus.

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The Real Story Behind NPR’s Current Problems

Yes, the broadcaster is a mess. but “wokeness” isn’t the issue..

NPR, the great bastion of old-school audio journalism, is a mess. But as someone who loves NPR, built my career there, and once aspired to stay forever, I say with sadness that it has been for a long time.

This might be news to those who tune out the circular firing squad of institutional media whiners. But my former NPR colleague Uri Berliner, one of the organization’s (as of now) senior editors, set off a firestorm by publishing a commentary that essentially blamed “wokeness” and Democratic partisanship for the apparent loss of confidence in the once-unimpeachable institution. (This morning, news broke that Uri has been suspended by NPR for violating a policy about “outside work,” and informed that he’d be fired for any more infractions.) The essay, published by Bari Weiss’ the Free Press, blew up certain corners of X and various Facebook feeds, and was gleefully lapped up by conservatives who’ve been fighting to defund NPR and public broadcasting for a generation.

It was a longtime fear at NPR that some scandal or mess that the network had hoped to contain within its headquarters, lovingly referred to as the “mother ship” by nippers and ex-nippers everywhere, would find its way to the outside world, where the organization’s very real, powerful enemies could exploit it. In fact, this is happening right now; Christopher Rufo, a conservative writer and fellow at the Manhattan Institute, has launched a campaign against NPR’s new CEO Katherine Maher, accusing her of liberal bias based on old tweets. Those kinds of threats reinforce an in-the-trenches camaraderie at NPR. It has also been used to quash internal criticism. I guess Uri’s piece proves that that strategy doesn’t work anymore.

Uri started at NPR in 1999. I started in 1997 in the audience research department as an administrative assistant. Because I was what we called “a back-seat baby,” someone who’d grown up being force-fed a steady diet of NPR from car radios and in the home by crunchy granola parents, I had spent the past several months before my college graduation searching the organization’s rudimentary website, desperate to find anything that I was qualified to do. A year later, I maneuvered into the news division as the editorial assistant to senior correspondent Daniel Schorr and one of the “Murrow Boys,” protégés of CBS Radio legend and Good Night, and Good Luck hero Edward R. Murrow.

After a stint at Salon from 1999 to 2001, I landed back at NPR. Everyone did. It was an institutional joke that people who left for other jobs would find their way back, because the place was irresistible. And it kind of was. So many people there were/are brilliant, kind, funny, interesting, and dedicated to public service. Aside from my family, I found most of the people I like, love, and care about while I was working at NPR.

So when Uri’s piece started popping up on my timeline last week, it felt like hearing a loud, ugly family argument break out in the room next door: I wanted to pretend as if it weren’t happening; I wanted people to shut up. But if they were going to shout, I at least wanted them to tell the whole story.

And that story is that NPR has been both a beacon of thoughtful, engaging, and fair journalism for decades, and a rickety organizational shit show for almost as long. If former CEO John Lansing—the big bad of Uri’s piece—failed to fix it, or somehow made it worse, that’s a failure he shared with almost every NPR leader before him. But if, as Uri charges (albeit in a negative way), Lansing genuinely managed to break the network loose from the grasp of self-righteous white liberal identity politics, even in an imperfect way, that would surprise the hell out of me. Especially given the well-reported exodus of top journalists of color, and the loss of a diverse group of journalists during last year’s podcast layoffs .

It did take a kind of courage for Uri to publicly criticize the organization. But it also took a lot of the wrong type of nerve. His argument is a demonstration of contemporary journalism at its worst, in which inconvenient facts and obvious questions were ignored, and the facts that could be shaped to serve the preferred argument were inflated in importance.

Take a step into the way-back machine to 2011, Uri’s so-called golden age. That’s the year when senior members of the development team fell for a scam set up by professional provocateur James O’Keefe . The aftermath took them out and toppled then–CEO and President Vivian Schiller. It came months after the ill-timed, clumsy firing of Juan Williams , which led to senior vice president of news Ellen Weiss resigning under pressure .

Uri also leapfrogs over a long list of contemporary fuckups and questionable calls that could explain the growing public distrust that concerns him. There were questions about NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg’s personal relationship with Ruth Bader Ginsburg compromising her reporting ; the departure of news chief Mike Oreskes , and other prominent men in the newsroom‚ after a wave of sexual harassment charges; the exposure of systematic exploitation of NPR’s temporary workforce . And those are just the public problems.

Behind the scenes and stretching back into the “golden age,” there were major strategic errors that seriously damaged the network’s prospects. The founding producer of The Daily at the New York Times was Theo Balcomb, a senior producer at All Things Considered who couldn’t get enough support to launch a morning news podcast inside NPR. There was the “Flat is the new growth” mantra that reigned for a few years after the network decided that a multimedia future meant shrugging off softness in listener numbers for core shows. Then there was the time in the late aughts when leadership decided that podcasting wasn’t going to amount to much, and so pumped the brakes on early efforts. Though the failure of imagination started earlier; the first big blunder I saw was in the late 1990s, when the network failed to lock in a deal with a little show called This American Life .

Uri’s account of the deliberate effort to undermine Trump up to and after his election is also bewilderingly incomplete, inaccurate, and skewed. For most of 2016, many NPR journalists warned newsroom leadership that we weren’t taking Trump and the possibility of his winning seriously enough. But top editors dismissed the chance of a Trump win repeatedly, declaring that Americans would be revolted by this or that outrageous thing he’d said or done. I remember one editorial meeting where a white newsroom leader said that Trump’s strong poll numbers wouldn’t survive his being exposed as a racist. When a journalist of color asked whether his numbers could be rising because of his racism, the comment was met with silence. In another meeting, I and a couple of other editorial leaders were encouraged to make sure that any coverage of a Trump lie was matched with a story about a lie from Hillary Clinton. Another colleague asked what to do if one candidate just lied more than the other. Another silent response.

I left NPR in the early fall of 2016, but when I came back to work on Morning Edition about a year later, I saw NO trace of the anti-Trump editorial machine that Uri references. On the contrary, people were at pains to find a way to cover Trump’s voters and his administration fairly. We went full-bore on “diner guy in a trucker hat” coverage and adopted the “alt-right” label to describe people who could accurately be called racists. The network had a reflexive need to stay on good terms with people in power, and journalists who had contacts within the administration were encouraged to pursue those bookings.

We regularly set up live interviews with Republican officials and Trump surrogates. But it was tough because NPR always loved guests who would be insightful, honest, and—perhaps above all—polite. There were plenty of people who’d for years fit that description across the partisan divide in official Washington, but they were scarce in the Trump administration. We changed the format of live political interviews, adding what we called a “level-set.” That would be three-ish minutes after a conversation with a political operative or elected official when a host and NPR reporter would try to fact-check what had just been said.

Maybe the biggest head-scratcher for me in Uri’s argument is how it frames the lack of pursuit of the Hunter Biden laptop story as driven exclusively by politics. Uri said there was no follow-through because “the timeless journalistic instinct of following a hot story lead was being squelched.” In fairness, I left NPR for good in the spring of 2020, so I wasn’t there for this story arc. And the inappropriate statement, from a loose-lipped editor, that “it was good we weren’t following the laptop story because it could help Trump” sounds on-brand. But that killer instinct was regularly beat out of NPR journalists, regardless of the political mood or the president.

People pitched good stories in our meetings all the time that were dismissed as insubstantial, or not interesting, or not important enough, only for them to appear days or weeks later in the New York Times or the Washington Post. And only then , NPR leaders would want reporters to jump on it.

There were several reasons why good pitches died. The pitcher wasn’t high enough in the editorial landscape to be taken seriously. The resources were scarce because we were top-heavy and spread thin, trying to cover the country and the world, far beyond electoral politics. We didn’t have enough reporters or the right reporters on whatever beat to cover the story properly. Correspondents, reporters, and desks could be very territorial, and if this one specific reporter wasn’t able to do a story—because they were covering something else, or on leave, or didn’t feel like it—the piece frequently died. If reporting on an issue or story had already been done by an NPR reporter, a pitch could get smothered. That’s even if the original story had been years ago and the facts had changed, because pursuing an update of an old story was frequently framed as some kind of insult to the reporter who’d done it before. Many sharp ideas just hit a wall of silence.

And to be fair, some of that did seem politically motivated, before and after Trump was elected. I remember resistance to covering the violent MS-13 gang after it became a major talking point in Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric—even though the gang was active and murdering people in communities around the D.C. metropolitan area, close to NPR’s headquarters, and just miles from where many staffers lived. I think a lot of critics would consider that “wokeness”: pussyfooting around an issue because it might offend people of color. I saw it as low-key racial bias, because MS-13’s victims were mostly poor Central American immigrants, the kind of people we didn’t think our affluent white listenership would pay attention to.

Race has long been one of those third-rail issues in NPR’s coverage. I was part of the Code Switch team, beginning in August 2014, around the time that Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson. The Code Switch unit had been birthed in one of those fits of diversity enthusiasm that have dotted the organization’s timeline from my first years there. The unit started in 2013, in the age of Obama, and focused mainly on blogging about race and the intersection with culture. But that changed when the network shut down Tell Me More with Michel Martin, a show that made covering race a priority, and one that I worked on from its first weeks until the bitter end. Code Switch stepped into the gap, with strong but soul-crushing coverage of police brutality , racist violence , protests, and civil unrest .

NPR did excellent work in covering those stories, including Michel—who is a mentor and dear friend to me—leading a community forum from Missouri, and great investigative reporting on a culture of corruption in Ferguson that led to overpolicing of Black residents.

Some listeners rightly pointed out that police killed white people too, and often under shady circumstances. When I suggested that we pursue it as a story, I got crickets. When video emerged of a cop shooting white teenager Zachary Hammond during a drug sting operation, I couldn’t get our leadership to green-light reporting on it. Code Switch was the only unit that went to air with something on Hammond’s death. I think that’s because it would have complicated—or acknowledged the complication—of a story where we could smugly position ourselves as on the “right” side.

And that’s what the core editorial problem at NPR is and, frankly, has long been: an abundance of caution that often crossed the border to cowardice. NPR culture encouraged an editorial fixation on finding the exact middle point of the elite political and social thought, planting a flag there, and calling it objectivity. That would more than explain the lack of follow-up on Hunter Biden’s laptop and the lab-leak theory, going full white guilt after George Floyd’s murder, and shifting to indignant white impatience with racial justice now.

Layers of complex relationships made genuine editorial criticism hazardous at NPR. Even in an industry in which office romances happen a lot, NPR has been exceptional, boasting dozens of “met and married” couples. And that doesn’t cover all the quiet couples, besties, and other personal entanglements. All this means that if you criticized someone’s editorial decisions in a meeting, their best friend, sweetheart, or ex might be glowering at you from across the table. Even a mild critique could be met with: You know John’s been having a hard time because his dad just died/wife just left him/kid is having problems. Give him a break. Lots of people who were in relationships with colleagues kept it out of their work, but enough did not that it contributed to a culture where whisper networks replaced open discussion.

Given all that, I have to acknowledge that I understand how Uri could’ve been honestly mistaken in reaching some of his conclusions. Another chronic organizational struggle at NPR is stove-piping. Your experience could be completely different from that of someone working right across the hall from you, depending on the team you worked with and the meetings you went to. I was lucky, and (mostly) played my cards right during my years there. I landed with great groups of journalists who nurtured my talents and helped me address my flaws. I loved the place and for years defended it from charges of bias, even when my friends were victims of it. I completely bought the “bad apples” version of NPR’s long-standing issues with racism and sexism.

I leaned on the positive, and the belief that NPR was great and could be better. So I was a part of a lot of the “Let’s make this diversity thing work” efforts that rankled Uri. I remember leading one session he attended, when he spoke out to insist that NPR’s diversity problem had a lot to do with issues beyond race, like class, region, education, and political perspective. He was right, and I told him so.

But maybe the stove-piping meant that Uri didn’t see the pattern in those efforts that started wearing my spirit down. Some big news in the world or an internal failure would spark a wave of carefully stage-managed soul-searching from leadership, and ad hoc committees of well-intentioned volunteers would be assembled to write lists of recommendations. Then those recommendations would be politely received, filed away, and forgotten. And two or three years later, some new crisis would start the cycle all over again. In my experience, those multihyphenate identity groups or task forces were disproportionately full of junior staffers. Because many veterans—except for true-believing tryhards like me—understood that they were a waste of time.

One of the moments that sealed my decision to leave NPR was a conversation with my colleague and friend Keith Woods , NPR’s chief diversity officer. I was struck by a profound sense of déjà vu, not just about the stubborn challenge of diversifying NPR’s coverage. I felt that he and I were repeating—word for word, beat for beat—a discussion about source diversity that we’d had in the exact same room years before.

By that time, my rose-colored glasses and NPR-fueled sense of my own superior powers of understanding had already taken a severe beating. I had thought highly of all the men who were later felled by the sexual harassment scandal and had unwittingly recommended some of them as mentors to young journalists. I discovered that Mike Oreskes—someone whom I trusted and who was critical in helping me get back into NPR in 2017—had even harassed one of the women I encouraged to seek him out for career advice. I was stunned in the management-level meetings and conversations where harassment victims were disparaged as troublemakers, and harassers who were still with the company were protected.

I so loved the version of NPR that I had experienced and had amplified in my imagination that I was slow to see the cruelty being done to people I worked with and cared about. Because of my reputation in the system, I had become a magnet for young public radio journalists across the country who wanted to share their stories of being sexually or racially harassed, underpaid, or bullied, and ask for my advice. I lost track of how many of these calls I got, or how many discreet coffeehouse chats revealed a new story of abuse. I remember at least three people who told me some version of “It’s OK. I don’t think about killing myself anymore.” For what it’s worth, two of those were young white journalists. When I reached out to talk with a wise NPR connected elder about it, her advice was to stop taking those calls. Pretend that I didn’t know the facts, because they challenged the narrative about who we were, and how my hubris had contributed to it.

I guess that’s why I think Uri is most wrong about NPR’s relationship with the rest of the country. It’s a very accurate reflection of America right now, a place where people won’t admit that good intentions don’t always yield good results, and would rather hide behind the myth of its excellence than do the hard work of making it a reality. I sincerely hope there’s still time to turn it around.

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NPR defends its journalism after senior editor says it has lost the public's trust

David Folkenflik

NPR is defending its journalism and integrity after a senior editor wrote an essay accusing it of losing the public's trust. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

NPR is defending its journalism and integrity after a senior editor wrote an essay accusing it of losing the public's trust.

NPR's top news executive defended its journalism and its commitment to reflecting a diverse array of views on Tuesday after a senior NPR editor wrote a broad critique of how the network has covered some of the most important stories of the age.

"An open-minded spirit no longer exists within NPR, and now, predictably, we don't have an audience that reflects America," writes Uri Berliner.

A strategic emphasis on diversity and inclusion on the basis of race, ethnicity and sexual orientation, promoted by NPR's former CEO, John Lansing, has fed "the absence of viewpoint diversity," Berliner writes.

NPR's chief news executive, Edith Chapin, wrote in a memo to staff Tuesday afternoon that she and the news leadership team strongly reject Berliner's assessment.

"We're proud to stand behind the exceptional work that our desks and shows do to cover a wide range of challenging stories," she wrote. "We believe that inclusion — among our staff, with our sourcing, and in our overall coverage — is critical to telling the nuanced stories of this country and our world."

NPR names tech executive Katherine Maher to lead in turbulent era

She added, "None of our work is above scrutiny or critique. We must have vigorous discussions in the newsroom about how we serve the public as a whole."

A spokesperson for NPR said Chapin, who also serves as the network's chief content officer, would have no further comment.

Praised by NPR's critics

Berliner is a senior editor on NPR's Business Desk. (Disclosure: I, too, am part of the Business Desk, and Berliner has edited many of my past stories. He did not see any version of this article or participate in its preparation before it was posted publicly.)

Berliner's essay , titled "I've Been at NPR for 25 years. Here's How We Lost America's Trust," was published by The Free Press, a website that has welcomed journalists who have concluded that mainstream news outlets have become reflexively liberal.

Berliner writes that as a Subaru-driving, Sarah Lawrence College graduate who "was raised by a lesbian peace activist mother ," he fits the mold of a loyal NPR fan.

Yet Berliner says NPR's news coverage has fallen short on some of the most controversial stories of recent years, from the question of whether former President Donald Trump colluded with Russia in the 2016 election, to the origins of the virus that causes COVID-19, to the significance and provenance of emails leaked from a laptop owned by Hunter Biden weeks before the 2020 election. In addition, he blasted NPR's coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict.

On each of these stories, Berliner asserts, NPR has suffered from groupthink due to too little diversity of viewpoints in the newsroom.

The essay ricocheted Tuesday around conservative media , with some labeling Berliner a whistleblower . Others picked it up on social media, including Elon Musk, who has lambasted NPR for leaving his social media site, X. (Musk emailed another NPR reporter a link to Berliner's article with a gibe that the reporter was a "quisling" — a World War II reference to someone who collaborates with the enemy.)

When asked for further comment late Tuesday, Berliner declined, saying the essay spoke for itself.

The arguments he raises — and counters — have percolated across U.S. newsrooms in recent years. The #MeToo sexual harassment scandals of 2016 and 2017 forced newsrooms to listen to and heed more junior colleagues. The social justice movement prompted by the killing of George Floyd in 2020 inspired a reckoning in many places. Newsroom leaders often appeared to stand on shaky ground.

Leaders at many newsrooms, including top editors at The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times , lost their jobs. Legendary Washington Post Executive Editor Martin Baron wrote in his memoir that he feared his bonds with the staff were "frayed beyond repair," especially over the degree of self-expression his journalists expected to exert on social media, before he decided to step down in early 2021.

Since then, Baron and others — including leaders of some of these newsrooms — have suggested that the pendulum has swung too far.

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New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger warned last year against journalists embracing a stance of what he calls "one-side-ism": "where journalists are demonstrating that they're on the side of the righteous."

"I really think that that can create blind spots and echo chambers," he said.

Internal arguments at The Times over the strength of its reporting on accusations that Hamas engaged in sexual assaults as part of a strategy for its Oct. 7 attack on Israel erupted publicly . The paper conducted an investigation to determine the source of a leak over a planned episode of the paper's podcast The Daily on the subject, which months later has not been released. The newsroom guild accused the paper of "targeted interrogation" of journalists of Middle Eastern descent.

Heated pushback in NPR's newsroom

Given Berliner's account of private conversations, several NPR journalists question whether they can now trust him with unguarded assessments about stories in real time. Others express frustration that he had not sought out comment in advance of publication. Berliner acknowledged to me that for this story, he did not seek NPR's approval to publish the piece, nor did he give the network advance notice.

Some of Berliner's NPR colleagues are responding heatedly. Fernando Alfonso, a senior supervising editor for digital news, wrote that he wholeheartedly rejected Berliner's critique of the coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict, for which NPR's journalists, like their peers, periodically put themselves at risk.

Alfonso also took issue with Berliner's concern over the focus on diversity at NPR.

"As a person of color who has often worked in newsrooms with little to no people who look like me, the efforts NPR has made to diversify its workforce and its sources are unique and appropriate given the news industry's long-standing lack of diversity," Alfonso says. "These efforts should be celebrated and not denigrated as Uri has done."

After this story was first published, Berliner contested Alfonso's characterization, saying his criticism of NPR is about the lack of diversity of viewpoints, not its diversity itself.

"I never criticized NPR's priority of achieving a more diverse workforce in terms of race, ethnicity and sexual orientation. I have not 'denigrated' NPR's newsroom diversity goals," Berliner said. "That's wrong."

Questions of diversity

Under former CEO John Lansing, NPR made increasing diversity, both of its staff and its audience, its "North Star" mission. Berliner says in the essay that NPR failed to consider broader diversity of viewpoint, noting, "In D.C., where NPR is headquartered and many of us live, I found 87 registered Democrats working in editorial positions and zero Republicans."

Berliner cited audience estimates that suggested a concurrent falloff in listening by Republicans. (The number of people listening to NPR broadcasts and terrestrial radio broadly has declined since the start of the pandemic.)

Former NPR vice president for news and ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin tweeted , "I know Uri. He's not wrong."

Others questioned Berliner's logic. "This probably gets causality somewhat backward," tweeted Semafor Washington editor Jordan Weissmann . "I'd guess that a lot of NPR listeners who voted for [Mitt] Romney have changed how they identify politically."

Similarly, Nieman Lab founder Joshua Benton suggested the rise of Trump alienated many NPR-appreciating Republicans from the GOP.

In recent years, NPR has greatly enhanced the percentage of people of color in its workforce and its executive ranks. Four out of 10 staffers are people of color; nearly half of NPR's leadership team identifies as Black, Asian or Latino.

"The philosophy is: Do you want to serve all of America and make sure it sounds like all of America, or not?" Lansing, who stepped down last month, says in response to Berliner's piece. "I'd welcome the argument against that."

"On radio, we were really lagging in our representation of an audience that makes us look like what America looks like today," Lansing says. The U.S. looks and sounds a lot different than it did in 1971, when NPR's first show was broadcast, Lansing says.

A network spokesperson says new NPR CEO Katherine Maher supports Chapin and her response to Berliner's critique.

The spokesperson says that Maher "believes that it's a healthy thing for a public service newsroom to engage in rigorous consideration of the needs of our audiences, including where we serve our mission well and where we can serve it better."

Disclosure: This story was reported and written by NPR Media Correspondent David Folkenflik and edited by Deputy Business Editor Emily Kopp and Managing Editor Gerry Holmes. Under NPR's protocol for reporting on itself, no NPR corporate official or news executive reviewed this story before it was posted publicly.

Democracy Dies Behind Paywalls

The case for making journalism free—at least during the 2024 election

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Produced by ElevenLabs and News Over Audio (NOA) using AI narration.

How many times has it happened? You’re on your computer, searching for a particular article, a hard-to-find fact, or a story you vaguely remember, and just when you seem to have discovered the exact right thing, a paywall descends. “$1 for Six Months.” “Save 40% on Year 1.” “Here’s Your Premium Digital Offer.” “Already a subscriber?” Hmm, no.

Now you’re faced with that old dilemma: to pay or not to pay. (Yes, you may face this very dilemma reading this story in The Atlantic .) And it’s not even that simple. It’s a monthly or yearly subscription—“Cancel at any time.” Is this article or story or fact important enough for you to pay?

Or do you tell yourself—as the overwhelming number of people do—that you’ll just keep searching and see if you can find it somewhere else for free?

According to the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, more than 75 percent of America’s leading newspapers, magazines, and journals are behind online paywalls. And how do American news consumers react to that? Almost 80 percent of Americans steer around those paywalls and seek out a free option.

Paywalls create a two-tiered system: credible, fact-based information for people who are willing to pay for it, and murkier, less-reliable information for everyone else. Simply put, paywalls get in the way of informing the public, which is the mission of journalism. And they get in the way of the public being informed, which is the foundation  of democracy. It is a terrible time for the press to be failing at reaching people, during an election in which democracy is on the line. There’s a simple, temporary solution: Publications should suspend their paywalls for all 2024 election coverage and all information that is beneficial to voters. Democracy does not die in darkness—it dies behind paywalls.

The problem is not just that professionally produced news is behind a wall; the problem is that paywalls increase the proportion of free and easily available stories that are actually filled with misinformation and disinformation. Way back in 1995 (think America Online), the UCLA professor Eugene Volokh predicted that the rise of “cheap speech”—free internet content—would not only democratize mass media by allowing new voices, but also increase the proliferation of misinformation and conspiracy theories, which would then destabilize mass media.

Paul Barrett, the deputy director of the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights and one of the premier scholars on mis- and disinformation, told me he knows of no research on the relationship between paywalls and misinformation. “But it stands to reason,” he said, “that if people seeking news are blocked by the paywalls that are increasingly common on serious professional journalism websites, many of those people are going to turn to less reliable sites where they’re more likely to encounter mis- and disinformation.”

In the pre-internet days, information wasn’t free—it just felt that way. Newsstands were everywhere, and you could buy a paper for a quarter. But that paper wasn’t just for you: After you read it at the coffee shop or on the train, you left it there for the next guy. The same was true for magazines. When I was the editor of Time , the publisher estimated that the “pass-along rate” of every issue was 10 to 15—that is, each magazine we sent out was read not only by the subscriber, but by 10 to 15 other people. In 1992, daily newspapers claimed a combined circulation of some 60 million; by 2022, while the nation had grown, that figure had fallen to 21 million. People want information to be free—and instantly available on their phone.

Barrett is aware that news organizations need revenue, and that almost a third of all U.S. newspapers have stopped publishing over the previous two decades. “It’s understandable that traditional news-gathering businesses are desperate for subscription revenue,” he told me, “but they may be inadvertently boosting the fortunes of fake news operations motivated by an appetite for clicks or an ideological agenda—or a combination of the two.”

Digital-news consumers can be divided into three categories: a small, elite group that pays hundreds to thousands of dollars a year for high-end subscriptions; a slightly larger group of people with one to three news subscriptions; and the roughly 80 percent of Americans who will not or cannot pay for information. Some significant percentage of this latter category are what scholars call “passive” news consumers—people who do not seek out information, but wait for it to come to them, whether from their social feeds, from friends, or from a TV in an airport. Putting reliable information behind paywalls increases the likelihood that passive news consumers will receive bad information.

In the short history of social media, the paywall was an early hurdle to getting good information; now there are newer and more perilous problems. The Wall Street Journal instituted a “hard paywall” in 1996. The Financial Times formally launched one in 2002. Other publications experimented with them, including The New York Times , which established its subscription plan and paywall in 2011. In 2000, I was the editor of Time.com, Time magazine’s website, when these experiments were going on. The axiom then was that “must have” publications like The Wall Street Journal could get away with charging for content, while “nice to have” publications like Time could not. Journalists were told that “information wants to be free.” But the truth was simpler: People wanted free information, and we gave it to them. And they got used to it.

Of course, publications need to cover their costs, and journalists need to be paid. Traditionally, publications had three lines of revenue: subscriptions, advertising, and newsstand sales. Newsstand sales have mostly disappeared. The internet should have been a virtual newsstand, but buying individual issues or articles is almost impossible. The failure to institute a frictionless mechanism for micropayments to purchase news was one of the greatest missteps in the early days of the web. Some publications would still be smart to try it.

I’d argue that paywalls are part of the reason Americans’ trust in media is at an all-time low. Less than a third of Americans in a recent Gallup poll say they have “a fair amount” or a “a great deal” of trust that the news is fair and accurate. A large percentage of these Americans see media as being biased. Well, part of the reason they think media are biased is that most fair, accurate, and unbiased news sits behind a wall. The free stuff needn’t be fair or accurate or unbiased. Disinformationists, conspiracy theorists, and Russian and Chinese troll farms don’t employ fact-checkers and libel lawyers and copy editors.

Part of the problem with the current, free news environment is that the platform companies, which are the largest distributors of free news, have deprioritized news. Meta has long had an uncomfortable relationship with news on Facebook. In the past year, according to CNN, Meta has changed its algorithm in a way that has cost some news outlets 30 to 40 percent of their traffic (and others more). Threads, Meta’s answer to X, is “not going to do anything to encourage” news and politics on the platform, says Adam Mosseri, the executive who oversees it. “My take is, from a platforms’ perspective, any incremental engagement or revenue [news] might drive is not at all worth the scrutiny, negativity (let’s be honest), or integrity risks that come along with them.” The platform companies are not in the news business; they are in the engagement business. News is less engaging than, say, dance shorts or chocolate-chip-cookie recipes—or eye-catching conspiracy theories.

As the platforms have diminished news, they have also weakened their integrity and content-moderation teams, which enforce community standards or terms of service. No major platform permits false advertising, child pornography, hate speech, or speech that leads to violence; the integrity and moderation teams take down such content. A recent paper from Barrett’s team at the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights argues that the greatest tech-related threat in 2024 is not artificial intelligence or foreign election interference, but something more mundane: the retreat from content moderation and the hollowing-out of trust-and-safety units and election-integrity teams. The increase in bad information on the free web puts an even greater burden on fact-based news reporting.

Now AI-created clickbait is also a growing threat. Generative AI’s ability to model, scrape, and even plagiarize real news—and then tailor it to users—is extraordinary. AI clickbait mills, posing as legitimate journalistic organizations, are churning out content that rips off real news and reporting. These plagiarism mills are receiving funding because, well, they’re cheap and profitable. For now, Google’s rankings don’t appear to make a distinction between a news article written by a human being and one written by an AI chatbot. They can, and they should.

The best way to address these challenges is for newsrooms to remove or suspend their paywalls for stories related to the 2024 election. I am mindful of the irony of putting this plea behind The Atlantic ’s own paywall, but that’s exactly where the argument should be made. If you’re reading this, you’ve probably paid to support journalism that you think matters in the world. Don’t you want it to be available to others, too, especially those who would not otherwise get to see it?

Emergencies and natural disasters have long prompted papers to suspend their paywalls. When Hurricane Irene hit the New York metropolitan area in 2011, The New York Times made all storm-related coverage freely available. “We are aware of our obligations to our audience and to the public at large when there is a big story that directly impacts such a large portion of people,” a New York Times editor said at the time. In some ways, this creates a philosophical inconsistency. The paywall says, This content is valuable and you have to pay for it . Suspending the paywall in a crisis says, This content is so valuable that you don’t have to pay for it . Similarly, when the coronavirus hit, The Atlantic made its COVID coverage—and its COVID Tracking Project—freely available to all.

During the pandemic, some publications found that suspending their paywall had an effect they had not anticipated: It increased subscriptions. The Seattle Times , the paper of record in a city that was an early epicenter of coronavirus, put all of its COVID-related content outside the paywall and then saw, according to its senior vice president of marketing, Kati Erwert, “a very significant increase in digital subscriptions”—two to three times its previous daily averages. The Philadelphia Inquirer put its COVID content outside its paywall in the spring of 2020 as a public service. And then, according to the paper’s director of special projects, Evan Benn, it saw a “higher than usual number of digital subscription sign-ups.”

The Tampa Bay Times , The Denver Post , and The St. Paul Pioneer Press , in Minnesota, all experienced similar increases, as did papers operated by the Tribune Publishing Company, including the Chicago Tribune and the Hartford Courant . The new subscribers were readers who appreciated the content and the reporting and wanted to support the paper’s efforts, and to make the coverage free for others to read, too.

Good journalism isn’t cheap, but outlets can find creative ways to pay for their reporting on the election. They can enlist foundations or other sponsors to underwrite their work. They can turn to readers who are willing to subscribe, renew their subscriptions, or make added donations to subsidize important coverage during a crucial election. And they can take advantage of the broader audience that unpaywalled stories can reach, using it to generate more advertising revenue—and even more civic-minded subscribers.

The reason papers suspend their paywall in times of crisis is because they understand that the basic and primary mission of the press is to inform and educate the public. This idea goes back to the country’s Founders. The press was protected by the First Amendment so it could provide the information that voters need in a democracy. “Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press,” Thomas Jefferson wrote, “and that cannot be limited without being lost.” Every journalist understands this. There is no story with a larger impact than an election in which the survival of democracy is on the ballot.

I believe it was a mistake to give away journalism for free in the 1990s. Information is not and never has been free. I devoutly believe that news organizations need to survive and figure out a revenue model that allows them to do so. But the most important mission of a news organization is to provide the public with information that allows citizens to make the best decisions in a constitutional democracy. Our government derives its legitimacy from the consent of the governed, and that consent is arrived at through the free flow of information—reliable, fact-based information. To that end, news organizations should put their election content in front of their paywall. The Constitution protects the press so that the press can protect constitutional democracy. Now the press must fulfill its end of the bargain.

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Opinion | An NPR editor is now a former NPR editor after his resignation

Uri berliner, an npr business editor who wrote a scathing essay about his organization in another publication, no longer works at npr..

This is how I led my newsletter on Tuesday:

When a senior editor at NPR recently wrote a 3,500-word essay for another outlet, blasting where he works and saying that NPR had “lost America’s trust,” my first thought, quite frankly, was, “ … and he still works there?”

We now have an answer to that question. No, Uri Berliner, the business editor who wrote the scathing essay, no longer works at NPR.

But he wasn’t fired. He quit.

On Wednesday, one day after it was learned he was serving a five-day suspension, Berliner released this statement : “I am resigning from NPR, a great American institution where I have worked for 25 years. I don’t support calls to defund NPR. I respect the integrity of my colleagues and wish for NPR to thrive and do important journalism. But I cannot work in a newsroom where I am disparaged by a new CEO whose divisive views confirm the very problems at NPR that I cite in my Free Press essay.”

Berliner is talking about Katherine Maher, a former tech executive who took over as NPR’s CEO in January. In the past, well before she joined NPR, Maher criticized Donald Trump and embraced what could be viewed as progressive causes on social media. It should be noted that the CEO at NPR is not involved in editorial decisions at the network.

Last week, after Berliner’s essay appeared in The Free Press, Maher wrote to staff (in a memo that was then published online ), “Asking a question about whether we’re living up to our mission should always be fair game: after all, journalism is nothing if not hard questions. Questioning whether our people are serving our mission with integrity, based on little more than the recognition of their identity, is profoundly disrespectful, hurtful, and demeaning.”

After Berliner’s essay appeared, NPR chief news executive Edith Chapin responded by telling staff, “We’re proud to stand behind the exceptional work that our desks and shows do to cover a wide range of challenging stories. We believe that inclusion — among our staff, with our sourcing, and in our overall coverage — is critical to telling the nuanced stories of this country and our world.”

Berliner’s essay is being embraced and amplified by many on the right, including former President Donald Trump and conservative activist Christopher Rufo. Meanwhile, much of NPR’s staff was outraged by their colleague’s essay.

The New York Times’ Benjamin Mullin wrote , “Mr. Berliner’s essay stirred up a hornet’s nest of criticism of NPR and made Mr. Berliner something of a pariah within the network. Several employees told The New York Times that they no longer wished to work with him, and his essay was denounced by Edith Chapin, the network’s top editor.”

Steve Inskeep, co-host of NPR’s “Morning Edition,” wrote on Substack , “This article needed a better editor. I don’t know who, if anyone, edited Uri’s story, but they let him publish an article that discredited itself. … A careful read of the article shows many sweeping statements for which the writer is unable to offer evidence.”

“Morning Edition” host Leila Fadel told The Washington Post’s Elahe Izadi , “Many feel this was a bad faith effort to undermine and endanger our reporters around the country and the world, rather than make us a stronger and more powerful news organization. He wrote what I think was a factually inaccurate take on our work that was filled with omissions to back his arguments.”

Mullin reported that “about 50” NPR employees signed a letter written to Maher and Chapin calling for a public rebuke of the “factual inaccuracies and elisions” in Berliner’s essay.

Then came Berliner’s resignation.

Mullin wrote, “In an interview, Mr. Berliner said his decision to resign from NPR coalesced early this week after an email exchange with Ms. Maher. He said in the interview that he could infer from one of her emails that a memo she had sent to employees last week about workplace integrity was referring to him even though he had not been mentioned by name. In the email, which was sent to Mr. Berliner on Monday, Ms. Maher said her memo ‘stands for itself in reflecting my perspective on our organization.’”

Berliner told Mullin, “Everything completely changed for me on Monday afternoon.”

Actually, it seemed as if everything changed when he wrote his essay for The Free Press.

Remembering a great journalist

Kim Christensen, a former Los Angeles Times investigative reporter who was a part of three Pulitzer Prize-winning projects, has died from cancer. He was 71.

Christensen was a part of two teams that won Pulitzers in the prestigious Public Service category while at the Los Angeles Times in 2011 and The Oregonian in 2001. He helped The Orange County Register win a 1996 Pulitzer for Investigative Reporting.

The Los Angeles Times’ Doug Smith described Christensen as a “dogged reporter beloved by colleagues for his wry humor, collegiality, graceful writing and incisive mind, but above all his humility.”

Tampa Bay Times executive editor Mark Katches told me, “Anyone who worked with him knew that he was incredibly gifted. I worked with Kim at the OC Register and teaming with him as a reporter was among the highlights of my career. He was funny, smart and as talented as they come.”

Katches told me he worked with Christensen on a project that ended with some shady charity players going to prison. Katches added, “He made everything and everyone around him better.”

Check out Smith’s story for more details on Christensen’s life and career.

The Academy Awards were more than a month ago and former President Donald Trump is still riled up over host Jimmy Kimmel. You might recall that Kimmel closed the Oscars ceremony by reading a post that Trump wrote about him. It got a big laugh from the celebrity crowd, especially when Kimmel said, “Well, thank you, President Trump. Thank you for watching, I’m surprised you’re still — isn’t it past your jail time?”

On his late-night show on ABC, Kimmel has continued to roast Trump over his legal issues and did so again Tuesday night. That led Trump to unleash a rant on Truth Social at 8:18 a.m. Wednesday.

Trump called him “Stupid Jimmy Kimmel” and criticized his performance as the Oscars host. Trump then bizarrely wrote, “… he stumbled through announcing the biggest award of all, ‘Picture of the Year.’ It was a CLASSIC CHOKE, one of the biggest ever in show business, and to top it off, he forgot to say the famous and mandatory line, ‘AND THE WINNER IS.’ Instead he stammered around as he opened the envelope.”

Actually, it wasn’t Kimmel who did that. It was actor Al Pacino who didn’t list the nominees and went straight to announcing “Oppenheimer” as Best Picture. Clearly, Trump was confused.

Although again, Kimmel got the last laugh, retweeting Trump’s rant and writing , “In fairness to our former President, many stable geniuses confuse me with Al Pacino….”

Hugh Grant agrees to settlement

Actor Hugh Grant, shown here last December. (Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File)

Actor Hugh Grant says he has settled his lawsuit against the U.K. tabloid The Sun for what he calls “an enormous sum of money.” Grant accused The Sun, which is part of Rupert Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers, of snooping on him by unlawfully tapping his phone, bugging his car and breaking into his home.

Grant wrote on X that he didn’t want to settle, saying, “I would love to see all the allegations that they deny tested in court. But the rules around civil litigation mean that if I proceed to trial and the court awards me damages that are even a penny less than the settlement offer, I would have to pay the legal costs of both sides. My lawyers tell me that that is exactly what would most likely happen here. Rupert Murdoch’s lawyers are very expensive. So even if every allegation is proven in court, I would still be liable for something approaching £10 million in costs. I’m afraid I am shying at that fence.”

The Associated Press reported , “Grant is among several celebrities, including actress Sienna Miller, soccer star Paul Gascoigne and Spice Girl Melanie Chisholm who have settled claims against the publisher.”

Media tidbits

• My Poynter colleague Kelly McBride, who is NPR’s public editor, with “The relentless focus on Gaza.”
• The Associated Press’ David Bauder with “Trump trial: Why can’t Americans see or hear what is going on inside the courtroom?”
• The New York Times’ Steven Kurutz with “From a Tiny Island in Maine, He Serves Up Fresh Media Gossip.”
• Los Angeles Times business columnist Michael Hiltzik with “With his Truth Social stock, Trump may be laughing all the way to the bank — but his investors have reason to weep.”
• Bloomberg’s Jamie Tarabay with “A Mansion, Two Dogs and a Wall: Inside The Conflict Between a Utah Billionaire And His Neighbors.”
• Los Angeles Times columnist Gustavo Arellano with “L.A.’s ultimate heartbreak industry isn’t Hollywood. It’s local journalism.”
• In an op-ed for the San Francisco Chronicle, Matt Pearce with “A new bill could help save California journalism. Google wants it dead.”
• Noah Eagle, one of the bright young sports broadcasters in the business, has been tapped by NBC to be the play-by-play voice for Team USA men’s and women’s basketball games, as well as the medal round, at this summer’s Paris Olympics. Eagle, 26, is the son of Ian Eagle, a prolific announcer who calls NFL, NBA and college basketball for CBS and Turner Sports. Ian Eagle recently called the men’s Final Four. Noah is already an announcing veteran with his most high-profile work being the play-by-play announcer on NBC’s Big Ten college football broadcasts.
• Some of ESPN’s very best — Don Van Natta Jr., Seth Wickersham and Jeremy Fowler — with “’Voted off the island’: Inside Bill Belichick’s failed job hunt.”

More resources for journalists

• Webinar today: Covering transgender issues with authority and accuracy .
• Applications for Poynter Producer Project close tomorrow!
• Editorial Integrity and Leadership Initiative is a fellowship for public media journalists. Applications due April 22.
• Delve more deeply into your editing skills with Poynter ACES Intermediate Certificate in Editing .

Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at [email protected] .

The Poynter Report is our daily media newsletter. To have it delivered to your inbox Monday-Friday, sign up here .

Topography of a news ecosystem: A first-of-its-kind study diagnoses the local news crisis in a single state

Media scholars at the University of Maryland documented the spread of local news dead spots — and unexpected vibrant areas — in that state.

$12 million Global Fact Check Fund opens applications for second year of grants

A partnership between Poynter’s International Fact-Checking Network and Google and YouTube continues to support fact-checking initiatives worldwide

Opinion | A columnist made a controversial introduction to Caitlin Clark

IndyStar sports columnist Gregg Doyel has been crushed online and accused of being creepy, sexist and worse. He’s since apologized multiple times

‘Satanic rituals’ at Taylor Swift shows? That’s false. And experts say the attack isn’t new.

Experts say musicians have been accused of performing satanic rituals for decades

How a longtime film critic’s death represents the great dissolve of local film criticism

Bryan VanCampen of The Ithaca Times was an institution in the central New York college town of 32,000. He might have been the last of his kind.

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The Morning

How tiktok changed us.

The app’s videos have become a fixture in the lives of tens of millions of Americans.

By Sapna Maheshwari

She covers media and technology.

In the coming days, Congress may advance a bill to ban TikTok or force its sale to an American company. Politicians in both parties call the app a threat to national security. But its reach is felt most acutely in our culture. Since it first arrived in the United States in 2018 (after merging with another app), its 15-second gulps of entertainment have become a fixture in the lives of tens of millions of Americans — including those who’ve never opened the app.

The engine that powers this juggernaut is TikTok’s recommendation algorithm, which figures out what users like and populates a customized feed of addictive videos. It’s called the For You Page, or FYP. It was not built to connect people with friends, the way Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat were. It was built to entertain.

As the app fights the most serious threat yet to its autonomy, my colleagues and I explored the ways that its innovation has reshaped American lives . In today’s newsletter, I’ll spotlight a few of them.

Hollywood. The film industry at first ignored and feared TikTok. But it eventually embraced the platform as a marketing tool for a new generation of moviegoers. The Sony romantic comedy “Anyone But You” drew a weak $8 million in ticket sales over Christmas weekend, my colleague Brooks Barnes, who covers Hollywood companies, writes. But “the movie turned into a full-fledged hit ($219 million) after TikTok users (at the urging of Sony) began making videos of themselves re-enacting the credit sequence.” The app is virtually a “ticket-selling machine,” he writes.

Schools. A few schools have removed bathroom mirrors because so many students were leaving class to film TikTok videos there. These clips constitute “a TikTok genre, dating back at least five years, in which students use school bathrooms as film sets for dance routines , lip-syncing clips or critiques of unclean lavatories,” my colleague Natasha Singer, who covers tech use in schools, writes. School bathrooms have also become “arenas to stage, film and post videos of bullying, physical assaults on schoolmates and acts of vandalism.”

News. For 14 percent of American adults, TikTok is a regular news source, up from 3 percent in 2020. People who don’t have traditional backgrounds in journalism, akin to bloggers for the TikTok era, aggregate and share information in snappy videos. Traditional news outlets are scrambling to catch up — and fretting about accuracy and context. Organizations including The New York Times are also making short-form videos in which reporters talk to the camera about their stories, the TikTok way.

Cooking. Recipes got a makeover on TikTok, as creators depart from static images and step-by-step instructions. My colleague Becky Hughes, NYT Cooking’s social media editor, writes that traditional recipes have given way to looser concepts. That has helped create trends like eggs fried in a puddle of pesto , sandwich fillings chopped into a homogenous mixture and mini pancakes served like cereal , she says. “The most shareable recipes are the ones that you can watch once, then turn around and make — no measurements, bake times or reading needed,” she writes. “Just dump, stir, like, follow, repeat.”

Our story also chronicles how TikTok has prompted self-diagnoses of ADHD and replaced window shopping at the mall. My colleagues looked at the app’s knack for spreading conspiracy theories, its fight with Taylor Swift’s record label and the secrecy around its algorithm. We hope you’ll spend some time on these articles, even if it’s only to check how many TikTok “microtrends,” such as glazed-donut skin and sleepy-girl mocktails, you’ve heard of.

More on TikTok

What happens to a niche product when TikTok makes it viral? It lands at Walmart .

Political debate is rife on the app. But few politicians have a substantial presence there.

TikTok has turned to nuns, veterans and ranchers to argue that it’s a force for good.

THE LATEST NEWS

Iran and israel.

Israel struck Iran early today , Israeli and Iranian officials said. It appears to be the Israeli military’s first retaliation for the Iranian attack on Israel this past week.

Iranian and Israeli television played down the strike, as did some officials. A newsreader in Iran described the attack as “not a big deal.” Israeli officials said the limited response was intended to avoid escalation .

Iranian officials said that small drones had hit a military base near the city of Isfahan, in central Iran. A separate group of drones was shot down about 500 miles further north, the officials said. The Israeli military has declined to comment.

Isfahan, a tourist hub, is also a center of missile production and the site of four small nuclear facilities.

Read what we know about the attack .

Israel-Hamas War

Hamas rejected Israel’s latest offer to pause the fighting in Gaza in exchange for the release of hostages, the C.I.A. director said.

The U.S. vetoed a U.N. resolution that would have supported admitting Palestine as a full member state.

Reaction to the War

The police arrested more than 100 pro-Palestinian students at Columbia University for violating rules about when and where protests can take place.

A disrupted honors ceremony, a shattered window, an injured security guard: Leaders of universities, worried about a breakdown in civility, are more tightly enforcing campus rules about demonstrations.

More International News

Heavy rains fell in Afghanistan and Pakistan , killing more than 130 people. The authorities have forecast more flooding and rainfall.

Voting in India’s election begins today. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is expected to win a third term, has remained popular even as he has become more autocratic .

Millions of girls in Africa will not receive promised doses of the HPV vaccine because of manufacturing issues at the drugmaker Merck.

Trump on Trial

All 12 jurors have been seated for Donald Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan. The judge, Juan Merchan, said he hoped opening arguments would begin on Monday.

Earlier in the day, Merchan excused two jurors who had previously been chosen, including one who worried about her identity becoming public.

More on Politics

A committee vote advanced a foreign aid bill for Ukraine and Israel . The move underscored Speaker Mike Johnson’s reliance on Democrats.

A federal judge rejected Trump’s attempt to delay a group of civil lawsuits over the Jan. 6 Capitol riot that were brought by police officers and members of Congress.

The U.S. sent dozens of migrants back to Haiti as deportation flights restarted.

The Biden administration blocked plans in Alaska to build an industrial road through a national park to reach a large copper deposit.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign qualified for the ballot in Michigan , a swing state. Democrats fear he’ll siphon votes from President Biden.

Jimmy Kimmel weighed in on Johnson’s troubles with his conference .

Other Big Stories

Apple removed the Meta-owned apps WhatsApp and Threads from its app store in China on Beijing’s orders.

Emergency room visits related to heat illness increased in the U.S. in 2023 , the warmest year on Earth in a century and a half.

Hilary Cass, the pediatrician who led a review of gender transition treatments in England, had the courage to follow the evidence , David Brooks writes.

How would Americans react to the O.J. verdict today? The answer highlights our racial progress since the 1990s, John McWhorter writes.

Here are columns by Michelle Goldberg and Pamela Paul on Columbia’s response to protests and Frank Bruni on the Trumps’ marriage .

MORNING READS

Like it’s 1989: In the 1980s and ’90s, Dafydd Jones’s pictures captured the parties of Manhattan’s rich and powerful .

Social Q’s: “Should I be loyal to my father or to my dying uncle? ”

In Manhattan: A Nigerian chess master is trying to break the record for the longest chess marathon . And he’s playing the games in Times Square.

Processing: After a hard loss, an e-bike helped a writer embrace life again .

Rebrand: Manischewitz, a staple in American Jewish households, is using a fresh look and new recipes to court a new generation.

Lives Lived: The guitarist and singer Dickey Betts was a guiding force in the Allman Brothers Band for decades, helping to define Southern rock. He died at 80 .

N.H.L.: The board of governors approved the Arizona Coyotes’ move to Salt Lake City .

College football: Colorado coach Deion Sanders scoffed at the number of Buffaloes players entering the transfer portal , asking, “What are we losing?”

ARTS AND IDEAS

Taylor Swift’s new album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” is out today, and fans who want to own a physical copy have no shortage of options. On Swift’s website, you can buy vinyl, CD, and even cassette versions. She offered autographed LPs, though those quickly sold out. One retailer is selling four separate CDs, each with a different bonus track.

As streaming cuts into the sales of records, many artists are trying to lift revenues by marketing albums as collectibles . “The music industry is trying to figure out how to maximize superfans and give them more of what they want,” Dan Runcie, an industry analyst, said.

More on Swift

“She sounds confused, bitter, raging, vulnerable, yet more gloriously chaotic than we’ve ever heard her before”: Read Rolling Stone’s review of the album .

Swift’s album arrived amid a promotional blitz . Sirius XM added a Swift radio station, Apple Music used her lyrics in a word game, and Spotify erected a Swift-branded “library installation” in L.A.

Swift’s album has come out nearly a month after Beyoncé’s new release. Rather than competing over the charts, the two superstars are giving each other some space .

THE MORNING RECOMMENDS …

Top matzo, bread or bagels with Joan Nathan’s homemade whitefish salad .

Listen to new songs from Olivia Rodrigo and others .

Upgrade your backyard .

Relax and let a robot vacuum do the work.

Take our news quiz .

Here is today’s Spelling Bee . Yesterday’s pangram was inkblot .

And here are today’s Mini Crossword , Wordle , Sudoku , Connections and Strands .

Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow.

Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox . Reach our team at [email protected] .

Sapna Maheshwari reports on TikTok, technology and emerging media companies. She has been a business reporter for more than a decade. Contact her at [email protected] . More about Sapna Maheshwari