Student media face off with universities
College paper advisor’s firing, sudden change in printing deal with university are part of larger free speech issue, says student media expert
Bloomington, Ind. — Freedom of speech is under attack again.
A week of tension over the student newspaper became a larger discussion around First Amendment issues for college and university newspapers when Indiana University fired Jim Rodenbush, the student media director for the Indiana Daily Student (IDS) Oct. 14.
Rodenbush had apparently refused to censor the student newspaper content for an issue set to print just before the University’s Homecoming weekend.
The IDS was able to get the issue to print when the student paper at Purdue University, the Purdue Exponent printed the newspaper and delivered it from the West Lafayette, Ind., Purdue campus to the Bloomington, Ind., IU campus on Oct. 17.
On Monday, IU Media School Dean Dave Tolchinsky announced a Task Force on Editorial Independence and Financial Sustainability of the IDS and Student Media.
Details of the new task force have yet to emerge, but the press release said the it will extend beyond the 2024 ad hoc committee’s work that initially reduced print to to develop recommendations on the intersection of editorial and business operations as IU’s student media organizations progress toward financial sustainability.
Just after IU fired Rodenbush and shut down the presses for the print edition of the IDS Homecoming issue, documentary photographer Zach Dobson spoke with Indiana High School Press Association executive director Ryan Gunterman. Gunterman also serves as the faculty advisor for The Franklin News at Franklin College.
Gunterman is also an Indiana University alumnus.
The Word is sharing the full 36-minute video of the interview from Dobson, which delves into issues of First Amendment rights and college media across the country. Below is an expert of the conversation, edited for clarity and length.
Gunterman: And I’m also a 2002 editor and former editor-in-chief of the Indiana Daily Student. And a lot of this began years ago, obviously, with the budget issues that the IDS had, and everything was gravy when there was plenty of money, and the account and IDS was completely independent.
But much like many other media outlets, those funds went dry. And that led to more involvement from IU and the School of Journalism and the now Media School to a point to where they came up with a restructuring plan. And that was back, gosh that was back in fall of last year is when they released that plan. But for how long they’d been at, like how long the IDS and the student editors have been asking for that plan was years in the making. Because the IDS was running a debt.
They had annual losses in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. And IU agreed to take on that debt, but then didn’t say what the plan was going to be for multiple years. And finally, when the plan came out the IDS actually got a hold of it, and the Media School found out, they got a hold of it. And they released it ahead of time.
And it was a very long, detailed plan that ultimately made sense in terms of how they’re going to restructure things and kind of get the debt under control.
But it wasn’t the plan that a committee had agreed upon the previous spring. And so that led to a lot of contention, especially with the cutting of the print product. That was not a part of the original plan from that spring committee. And when the Media School said they’re going to cut the IDS print product down to seven issues, that was when
they announced that before they told the students that.
Dobson: Uhg.
Gunterman: And which obviously caused some hurt feelings and especially because the print product was making a profit. I mean, it was the one area that they were actually making a profit. And so there was a lot of contention with that.
And then the plan moved forward with the seven print editions, primarily around the time you would have like a special edition that would be heavily advertised in, like a Homecoming, that included like the Homecoming guide, or like, you know, how we used, we did the Little Five Guide, or the Big Ten basketball preview guide, which was a special insert section, Housing Guide, things like that, that just drew more money, more advertising dollars.
And those would be the special editions that would come with the, that would be the one they would actually print an edition of the IDS newspaper. And so that was what was going to happen with this issue that was supposed to come out tomorrow. It was supposed to be one of those special issues, because it was a Homecoming guide.
But what the IDS was told, and what the IDS student media director was told, was the surrounding issue was not to be news. Now, what all that entails, specifics, like I’ve had a lot of people, like my phone’s been blowing up for 24 hours now, it feels like — and people keep asking, like, what’s the story? What’s the news that got everything shut down? And that hasn’t been made clear.
Dobson: Okay.
Gunterman: But what has been said, at least from the IDS point of view, and the snippets from the emails that Jim Rodenbush had received, it has been told that it’s not supposed to be like hard hitting news that’s going to be surrounding the Homecoming guide.
And so when they told Jim this, Jim has always said, he’s not going to tell the students what to print and what not to print. That’s been the longstanding practice for, you know, decades upon decades.
It’s obviously established in the charter for the IDS. And it’s, you know, educationally, as somebody who like, I’m also the state director for the Journalism Education Association. I’m the Indiana director for the National Education Association for Journalism.
That is proper educational practice to allow students to control student media — to not prior review, to not you know, obviously censor, at the very least student work.
But they told Jim that that’s what needs to happen, and the students shouldn’t print news in the IDS for this print edition. And so when Jim did what he said he would always do, and what I would want him to do, and is proper educational practice when he did that, is when they fired him. And then hours later, they fired him, you know, last night, what was it, the 14th? They fired him on the 14th, and then they announced the cut to the print of the IDS. And so now as of now, those seven editions that, you know, they guess gifted to the IDS, I don’t know —
Dobson: Sure.
Gunterman: They’re are no longer going to happen now at all.
Dobson: Oh, wow. Okay. So his role is was the director of student media. I mean traditionally, what does a director of student media do?
Gunterman: Traditionally, a student media director is the person who advocates for the student journalist, is the person that provides guidance, you know, like critiques, after work would be distributed.
Dobson: Ok.
Gunterman: Providing that feedback, providing that type of evaluation. The key is that would always be done after it was published, after it was distributed. They did not serve as a gatekeeper. In fact, there are several, you know, codes of ethics by, you know, the, by Collegiate Media Association, the Association of Collegiate Press, that say advisors are not to serve in a gatekeeping role. They’re not supposed to serve in an editorial role, because that’s how the students learn how to do it.
So, you’re taking away an educational opportunity. And something that a former principal of mine said, when somebody wanted like me to step in and serve as an editor for a student newspaper, he told people that that would be educational malpractice —
Dobson: Hmm.
Gunterman: — because I’m taking away an educational opportunity for the students in my classroom. And so, Jim’s role is basically to be a champion for the IDS, for student journalists. If he were to ever step in, it would be to be upon request or it would be, you know, in a situation to where there is illegal speech, which you know, again, like not all speech is legal, but illegal speech is a very, very high bar to hit, you know.
And so that would be the only circumstance that would even happen. And so, like, I’m also the student media advisor for Franklin College, and my role is to provide guidance when needed, which usually is upon request, or to directly communicate that with the editor-in-chief. You know I’m not having staff meetings with the staff. The editors are in charge. And so, my role is always to provide, like, the feedback after the fact, because there’s also an educational opportunity of learning the consequences of distributing your work to a mass audience, right?
Dobson: Sure, yeah.
Gunterman: So, you know, and you can’t learn that if you have somebody, you know, being a helicopter parent, basically, over the editorial staff. And so, that’s what Jim’s role is, and should be, and has all, you know, almost always been the role of the student media director at IU for well over 150 years.
Dobson: Okay. So, the way that the university and the paper are tied in together, is that a pretty common practice across the country? Do we see that sort of thing a lot or do a lot of times, do they actually have complete independence, like the IDS used to?
An issue of the Indiana Daily Student with a wrap that reads “We student journalists must stand together” sits in in the hands of the status of Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent and Indiana Daily Student alumnus Ernie Pyle sitting at his desk on the Indiana University campus. Journalists from the Purdue Exponent, the student newspaper at Purdue University, printed the IDS Homecoming print edition after the issue was pulled by the Indiana University administration and fired the student media director Oct. 14. The Exponent journalists then stocked the IDS stands with the Exponent’s IDS issue and took several photos around campus, such as this one.
Gunterman: They, a lot more used to, but now it’s becoming so financially almost impossible to maintain some type of successful financial, you know structure to where they don’t need the university’s dollars, especially when the university’s dollars are so much.
I mean, when you had to get so much in tuition, and fees, and from the state, and all of the above, it’s really, really difficult to, you know, maintain a successful student media operation, at least at the levels that people are used to.
And so it’s not that they can’t do it, but what the IDS would become, or, you know like the Exponent at Purdue, or even at like, UT Austin, or Northwestern, to be at the level that they’re accustomed to, it just costs more money. And if that money’s not there from outside the university, which obviously had been advertising, much like any other traditional media format, if it’s not there, then the only other option, usually, unless there’s some nonprofit you know, structure, which hasn’t worked yet for a collegiate media outlet, is through the university.
And it benefits the university too. I mean, like the IDS can be a really great recruiting tool for people who have interest in, you know, communications, and more than just like journalism and traditional journalism. It can benefit the University. So, there is obviously some type of vested interest there from the university side of things. But not everybody can see that and it appears that this administration is, at least they don’t see it, or they don’t care about it.
Dobson: Sure. Well, I’m curious too, you know, they wrote, the editors-in-chief wrote, telling us what we can and cannot print is unlawful censorship established by legal precedent surrounding speech law on public college campuses.
So what is the law that’s surrounding that?
Gunterman: Well there are multiple things. First of all, in the state constitution, there is actually a section in there, I think it’s Section 1, Article 9 — I would have to go back and look. But there is an article in the state constitution that, if anything, is more protective of speech in the press than the First Amendment is. Because, I mean, it clearly outlines it.And I can pull it up and find it somewhere, I can send it to you. But in the high school realm of things, it’s one thing when you have the Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier case back in 1988, which did restrict student press and student expression at that level. It said that, you know, basically schools can suppress student speech if it doesn’t meet, you know, ideological concerns of the educational pedagogy. If it’s not met, if it doesn’t meet that, then administration can censor and suppress that type of speech and expression, which, you know, led to a big can of worms because what the hell does that even mean?
Like, you know, educational pedagogy in one place is very different than another.
The primary case that is used and is applicable for, you know, collegiate speech in press is the Tinker case, is the Tinker v. Des Moines. Because that’s much more open-ended in terms of freedom of press, freedom of student speech. And even though it was a high school in 1969, there have been multiple uses of that case to set precedent for student speech and for student expression.
And while some things at the district court level have not always followed that directly, and there was one case in district court that mentioned applying Hazelwood to college press, that’s never been a widely accepted practice primarily because this is a state-funded institution. And to censor the people who are at a state-funded institution, at bare minimum, blurs a very troubling line when it comes to free speech and First Amendment.
But, um, you know, it’s one thing if they just fire Jim, right? It’s unethical, it’s cruel, but if they fire Jim, then it’s, okay, they can say it’s a personnel issue, it’s a cost-cutting issue, whatever, whatever bullshit they want to come up with. But for them to then tell the students that they’re not allowed this type of expression, this type of freedom, is very different. Because, you know, these are not IU employees, you know, full-time employees.
I mean, these are students. And the other tricky thing that has been served as, you know legal strategy is what’s called, you know, firstlike, basically, freedom of speech, freedom of expression by policy or practice. So, obviously, there are things that, where there is a policy that says students have First Amendment rights. And so there you go, cut or dry. But there’s also the aspect of, you know, freedom or rights by practice. Like, it’s been a long-standing practice that the IDS is not censored. It’s a long-standing practice that the students have had the final say in the work in the student, you know, journalism that they’re producing and distributing.
And so, if a place like IU decides, okay, well, we’re going to cut that right now and not allow that, the legal argument then is like, well, you’ve allowed it for like 150-something years, why now?
And then that’s when they get into you’re censoring based on viewpoint. You’re censoring based on the content. You’re not censoring based on something that applies to everyone. You’re focusing on these people. And so, you picked it because you didn’t like it at this moment. You picked it because you’re pissed about it right now, or you’re pissed at these people right now. And that’s not allowed under the First Amendment, especially in a institution like a state university
Dobson: Okay. So, what is their position? From what I read, they said this is all business-related, that they were asking them not to print news, that that is somehow business-related. How does that track? I mean, what, do we know anything about what the actual motivation could be?
Gunterman: Well, I don’t know. I do know I talked to somebody just actually 20 minutes ago who was a higher-up in communications at the Media School, and she said that right now, the Media School is actually formulating a response. So, you could have more information from the Media School before the end of the night, and they’re working on that right now. But everything they’ve done up to this point, from the committees to the re-imagined plan for student media — all of this stuff — it’s all been separate of content. It’s all been about a restructuring. And, in full disclosure, when they announced that initial plan, there were people who were really pissed about it. But, while there were some parts in it that I wasn’t thrilled about, I understood it.
You have to change along with the landscape. We can’t just sit here and keep pretending that things are always going to be this way. Newspapers are always going to be around, et cetera. And so, you do need to adjust based on the skills that are out therein that real world.
And I could see a lot of the changes they were making justifying that. This is completely different. This is something to where the student media director, whose job it is to guide the student journalists to learn how to be journalists so when they graduate, they know how to be journalists. That’s his job. He was told don’t let them do this. And when he refused, he was fired. And now he’s fired.
And now they just announced that initial plan that they were so proud of, of the seven print issues and things like that, that now we’re just going to cut them all. And so, I don’t know the conversations that the editors-in-chief had with people at the Media School. I don’t know the content that they were trying to publish. But it is pretty clear that they wanted to do journalism. This is one of their few opportunities to actually put it in a print publication because that’s what the school restricted them to.
And the school didn’t like it. So, they took their ball and went home.
Dobson: Mhhmm.
Gunterman: I mean, they still could have printed like this. You know how this works. If there’s an issue that’s supposed to come out tomorrow, that issue is pretty much like 90 to 95 percent done. Especially considering if they’ve been working on it for how many weeks, if not longer. So that issue could have been printed and still could have been distributed. And they said, nope, you made us mad.
They’re cutting it. And they’re cutting everything else. And they’re just getting rid of print. And they told them that within 24 hours of saying, Oh yeah, by the way, your leader is also fired. We got rid of him.
Yeah. So, what part of that is a business decision?
Dobson: Right. I’m sure they have contracts in place and deposits paid and things like that, that there’s a certain amount of money that they would have lost in the situation. I mean, I guess I have maybe like a two-part follow-up. Could they have known any specific thing that was going to be published that they didn’t want published, is the first part. And then the second part would be like, is this— I mean, we hear a lot about free speech on campus these days. I mean is this part of kind of that larger picture? I know IU‘s been under some scrutiny for some of this sort of thing. How does that all play in?
Gunterman: Yeah. Well, on the first part, it more than likely is what they did when this new restructuring plan came out. The IDS and their reporters went to the Media School dean and said, Hey, look, we have the plan. Can we get comment on it?
Well, the dean was like, Wait, you have the plan?
And then to get ahead of it, went ahead and published the plan before they were scheduled to publish the plan. They wanted to break the news before the IDS did. They wanted to get in front of the story, right?
They want to control the story, which is old school PR move. Same thing happened here. This was something that involved reporters attempting to get comment for doing responsible journalism. And doing responsible journalism getting the correct sources, even getting right of reply to people who may be accused of things.
A responsible journalist’s job, if they’re doing something involving any of that, is to reach out to the president’s office and get comment and get reply. And so they’re doing their job. And somebody reached out and said, are they doing a story about this?
Don’t let them do a story about this. We don’t want this in the homecoming issue. We don’t, we want this to be, you know, like all puppy dogs and flowers and, you know, this more of a promotional tool than anything. This is not the appropriate outlet for it. Well, if it’s a student newspaper, then the students can determine what the student newspaper is. If you don’t want to do that, don’t call it the fucking student newspaper.
And so by the journalists doing their job, that’s what tips off the sources that they’re covering. Because if you’re going to write a story about anything involving the Media School, you go for comment about, you know, to the Dean or a higher up. And then the last, like, what’s this for? Again, responsible journalists, like you don’t blindside somebody, you let them know this is the topic. Now you might not send them questions. Like there’s ethical concerns about that. You definitely don’t let them prior review a story or for full blown content. But they can put two and two together. And when they find out, Hey, this Homecoming issue that, you know, we’re paying for,
which again, like I get it, it’s their money, like they are paying for it. But they also agreed to allow student media to be independent. I mean the Dean was at that reunion event last November with, you know, hundreds of student publications alumni, and took questions and straight up told us that this stuff would not happen.
You know, this, like this type of stuff would not happen. The IDS still operating independently. Galen Clavio, you know, said the same thing. And I don’t know what his new title is, if he has the new title. I know he’s, I think, undergraduate Dean at the Media School, but I think he got a promotion. Anyways, it’s not relevant. But he told that audience the same thing. Basically, everybody was told all of this stuff that they’re doing right now was not going to be a possibility. And us being afraid of it is not, you know, warranted. Well, guess what?
All of our fears came true.
And, again, I don’t know if there is a direct connection between like, you know, like Provost to Dean or anything like that. But I know that they talk, I know that they communicate about the school and about student media and about the IDS. And so for an administration that just was ranked the worst at free speech in the in the FIRE Report that came out, it’s not an obscene leap that to think that they had something to do with this.
Dobson: Sure. So that’s kind of like that’s likely what had happened that they got wind of something specific? Or did you hear from somebody, they did get wind of something specific?
Gunterman: I didn’t hear that they got wind of something specific. I did get I did find out that they knew that type of content was going to be in there in terms of news. Now again, what that content entails, I can’t, you know, I’ve actually been reaching out to people to figure that out today, because I’ve been getting a lot of people asking me the same question.
But I know for a fact that the content was news. They didn’t like the content. And so and they told Jim, shut this down He said no, he got fired. And to prevent the students from, you know, printing this stuff, they stopped print. And it all happened like within a 24-hour time span. And it was related to the content. It wasn’t because somebody didn’t like, you know, a font selection or color choice, or even just like that.
Dobson: Or even just the general stories that they had been printing lately? It was related to something specific?
Gunterman: It was like related to something specific. And it was something that was going to get more attention because it’s one of the few print editions which obviously goes into the news stands, and it has a longer shelf life, um because there’s not other issues to replace it. And, you know you have Homecoming for the football team that just had an amazing when and now has national attention, and every game is sold out.
They didn’t want news content in there. And so they fired somebody. And then they got rid of all the print publication, which is a pretty drastic response.
Dobson: Has anything like this been happening anywhere else that we’ve seen related to student media?
Gunterman: I mean, I know we’ve seen issues of, you know, events being canceled across campuses across the country. But, like, has this reached much into student media? I mean, you know, there have been several instances, of, you know, and a lot of it’s had to do with like budget.
Dobson: Right.
Gunterman: And so, like, we don’t want to pay for this. And if you’re going to take our money, then you’re going to need to, you know, we’re going to need to have some kind of say in the content. And if you’re not going to do this, then we’re taking our money away.
And usually that’s how schools punish. They’ll either punish the students by punishing a faculty member who’s involved,
or they’ll just take away their money.
And, there have been cases like this recently in Texas to where this has happened. I mean, even with Purdue. Right? With The Exponent. Purdue is saying “You’re not allowed to use< the name ‘Purdue’ in the Purdue Exponent.” They’re not allowing them to have parking passes on campus anymore, which is a longstanding tradition. They’re not allowing they’re never, they’re not going to distribute the Exponent anymore. Even though it’s been a long-standing tradition. And they’re cutting all of this stuff.
Very rarely will you see a death knell this violent like what’s happening at the IDS. Usually, it’s by a thousand cuts or just a slow, you know, choke hold. Which is what they’re doing, which is what they’re doing at Purdue and elsewhere.
Something this drastic and immediate — I think that’s why this is more shocking than some of the other instances that’s happened across this country. Because, again, there’s a much more tactful way to do this if they really wanted to do it. It’s not the best way to do it. It’s a skeezy way to do it.
Unethical way to do it.
But it doesn’t involve taking away somebody’s livelihood. like I don’t — Jim can’t be rehired by IU. So, I mean, what? He’s probably got to leave Bloomington. I mean, like what? Where else is going to work? And now you’re getting rid of a storied publication.
I mean, this has to be online stuff and everything, but who knows when they get a new student media director in there, there’s probably just going to be a “Yes Person,” and they’re going to be the person who is going to do the opposite of what the student media advisor should do. Who knows how the IDS Online product’s going to look like now?And whether that can be successful.
So for them to do this all in a very short period of time, especially after they told (alumni) they weren’t going to do it, they said they wouldn’t do this. And sure as hell, here we are, you know, less than a year after, because he told us this in November of last year, and less than a year later, all the stuff they said they wouldn’t do, they’ve done it all. So what the hell does the next five years look like?
Dobson: So any any closing thoughts on all this?
Gunterman: It’s just it’s just sad, man. You know, I still live in Bloomington. We, you know, my met my wife at the IDS, and it’s such a great place as a learning lab for students to learn what they need to know. The very first minute they walk off campus
and into the workforce. And in a time when we desperately need responsible, ethical communicators who can distribute factual information amongst the noise, a move like this makes that much more difficult to do.
And so if I’m looking at going to a school to learn what I need to know to be good at this and to provide a service that this country desperately needs, IU‘s off my list. Now, I might look, you know, I’m looking at, other colleges in Indiana. And, you know, not just my own at Franklin College, but like a Ball State or a Butler or whomever, you know, a or another big university institution.
But this is I hope it’s not a death knell, but it very well can be at least to what the IDS was and could have been. But this could be the true killing of something great.
Zach Dobson is a documentary and commercial photographer based in Carmel, Ind. He holds a degree in journalism from Indiana University with a concentration in photography. Dobson focuses on documenting people’s lives and businesses in action. He also co-hosts the weekly podcast Photography is Nothing with his wife and business partner Courtney McCracken. Follow on Instagram and on YouTube at @zackdobsonphoto.
This is news. This article uses interviews with experts and people whose experiences are relevant to a topic along with facts to tell a story about an issue.
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