In the midst of a constant news cycle, student media filled a gap in coverage during campus protests, 2024 elections and the ongoing executive orders that impact students.
Feb. 27 will be the eighth annual Student Press Freedom Day and is a national day of action created by the Student Press Law Center.
This is a day to acknowledge and celebrate student journalists who bring accurate, fair and timely information to their campuses.
Student media are advocates and are often the first line of contact for the student body and employees of their schools. They are often the first to hear about the great things happening and the issues people are concerned about.
During threats of campus election polling sites in Tarrant County, The Shorthorn at UTA and The Collegian brought attention to the efforts of county leaders and community members to suppress student votes.
College media coverage of the Israel-Hamas war put student journalists on the front line of coverage and often did a better job of informing students, staff and the nation.
The ability to give real-time information to their campus and the wider community, everything from encampments being put up, arrests of students and staff and the attempts of campus administrations to silence outlets by locking them out of their offices highlights the importance of student media.
“The turning point was certainly immediate, very sudden,” said presenter Georgia Dillane from Columbia University student radio station WKCR to The Guardian last year. “We received a tip at 4 a.m. that there would be a demonstration on Columbia’s campus, and pretty soon after that, we went live on air.”
Students spent more than 18 hours a day covering their campuses and sending news back to their newsroom for verification and publication.
This is often the only accurate news others on campus would receive.
This meant putting themselves at risk of arrest, tear gas and attacks from counterprotesters and suspension while trying to do their jobs. According to the AP, even journalism professors wrote phone numbers on the arms of student reporters for them to call in case they were arrested.
The North Texas Daily coverage of the anti-DEI bill shed light on the 96 UNT programs and activities eliminated or modified due to anti- DEI Senate Bill 17 as well as detailing how professors resigned and how the ban impacted research and teaching.
Protests and DEI bans are not the only issues students have had to work through difficult stories and conditions.
Students at Pepperdine University’s newspaper, the Pepperdine Graphic, reported live during the Franklin and Palisades fires.
They brought breaking news about the proximity of the fires, class cancellations, where students could get masks, food and water, shelter-in-place orders and evacuation plans.
Through social media and their website, the Graphic continuously covered the multiple fires in the area often taking pictures from their windows and parking lots as the fire crept closer and closer to campus.
Journalists around the world are seeing the parallels between our current political climate and times in the past.
Students are getting firsthand experience on how to cover these events ethically and timely without the restrictions that mainstream media faces.
While this is a time to celebrate Student Press Freedom Day, it is also a time to remember the importance of student media in upholding constitutional freedoms.
This is a day to also remember the First Amendment rights for students and their advisers as they risk their freedom and rights to bring news to their community.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
In a time when news outlets across the country are shutting their doors, student media has taken up the mental for their community.
The protections under the Constitution are vital to the media in reporting the news. It is critical to democracy.
