All opinions, columns and letters reflect the views of the individual writer and not necessarily those of the IDS or its staffers.
The mid-October news that Indiana University abruptly fired the Indiana Daily Student newspaper advisor and subsequently canceled its print Homecoming edition sparked a familiar feeling of disappointment and dread within us as former faculty members in the IU Media School. These actions by administrators were a stark betrayal of the principles journalism education should embody: fact-seeking, providing context and encouraging dialogue.
What happened to the IDS is not an isolated incident; it is part of a pattern, a shift away from the foundational principles of journalism and journalism education that can be seen at many universities across the United States. Even as IU has now reversed course to allow the IDS to print again, Chancellor David Reingold denies any censorship occurred and points to yet another task force as the best way forward. These words fall short as even a first step toward rebuilding trust and a revitalization of the principles upon which journalism schools typically strive to operate.
What the journalism faculty and students at IU have experienced is a window into the future of journalism education beyond Bloomington, one of reduced faculty governance and not just unchecked, but uncheckable administrative power. The current IU journalism faculty has weathered more than a decade of disruptions to the journalism school model. We, for a shorter amount of time, weathered them, too, but ultimately sought shelter elsewhere.
There were warning signs. Red flags indicating a shift away from a commitment to the principles of journalism at Indiana began years ago. The IU School of Journalism, which once stood independent in Ernie Pyle Hall, was restructured as a unit of journalism within the newly created Media School in 2014. With the move from school to unit, a tangible shift in autonomy and resource accessibility followed. First came restricted resources, then several other inequities. Then came the fleeing of faculty, primarily women and people whose work focused on the intersection of media and social justice. Then came even more turnover in management and a void in true leadership.
Then came corporate-tinged administrative arguments about journalism’s contribution to college budget deficits — a chord we imagine resonates with J-school faculties across the United States. IU administrators argue financial constraints forced them to cut off the publication of an IDS issue days before it was slated to run, chock-full of paid advertisements.
As Interim Journalism Unit Head Suzannah Evans Comfort pointed out in an interview, the operational deficit claims do not take into account the other ways in which student media enrich the campus. The award-winning student publications help recruit top high school journalists to spend their tuition dollars at IU. The student journalists go on to report at some of the top news agencies in the country. Alumni later donate back to IU and to the program, helping sustain scholarship, innovation in the field and the overhead costs associated with being a unit in the university system. Student-led media coverage provides a sense of community and identity across the entire student body — a service that is impossible to type into a spreadsheet.
Importantly, not every unit within an educational institution will always be profitable. That’s why the university is not a for-profit corporation (and why partners, like Mark Cuban, have time and again donated to support causes like student-led media).
Without independent student media that can effectively sell advertising, there is an imminent risk for further deficit. A collection of IU press releases will not be read online or in print as often as a product with interesting, enterprising and independent news would be. And advertisers are less keen to pay for something that is less viewed. That’s not just a challenge for IU. In this era, journalism schools around the country are facing similar dilemmas.
While there are no definitive answers to the best financial model for student media or for journalism programs at large, the silver lining of this crisis is the opportunity to reimagine how the essential principles of journalism — commitments to truth-seeking, diversity of viewpoints, fostering dialogue, monitoring the powerful — can be reimagined to better fit a political moment where verified content created by people devoted to the truth is as vital as ever.
While the principles are longstanding, the path to revitalizing journalism education is not backward. Nostalgia for the days of Ernie Pyle will not save us. We recognize that many journalism schools and their associated student publications harbor fond memories of late nights, hard work and meaningful change brought about by their reporting. What those who are upset about the recent situation at the IU Media School may not realize, though, is that their longing for “golden days” of the IDS, unencumbered by modern financial realities, was not a bastion for all.
Exclusion in J-schools often mirrors and is intertwined with the exclusion we see in the industry. Sexism, racism, classism and ableism have long structured the demographic representation of both spaces — even during eras with multifaceted efforts to diversify faculty ranks and create more inclusive environments. As former journalists, some of the challenges we faced in the newsroom reappeared in academia in recognizable ways that affected the student experience.
For both of us, the biases of caretaking and motherhood affected the opportunities we were afforded. In academia, our identities structured the perceptions of our commitment to our work, the mentorship we received and the classes we were (or were not) encouraged to teach. Our experiences were also shaped by internal critiques that our research and teaching agendas were not serious enough. Our drive for media research, in particular, to have an impact beyond the ivory tower did not align well with the reward system of traditional academia that held sway during our time at IU. Those in administration who held “views from nowhere” used their power to minimize identity-conscious work and belittle the battles to defend vulnerable students (undergraduate and graduate). And those are just our experiences — many like us have similar stories. Each experience resulted in the loss of the invaluable currency of time, resources and social capital for faculty and students.
While it may not be a focus of much of the discussion around free speech and censorship this fall, we want to point out that media research that better describes the realities of our multicultural society is an important benefit to journalism students who attend schools like Indiana. Having faculty who teach journalism students not only how to report but also why their reporting affects society is a key part of reimagining journalism education for the present moment. A system that drives away faculty who conduct that kind of research does not help student journalists learn the broader psychological and societal implications of their craft or to become the fully-informed, critical thinkers that we need in newsrooms across the country.
The path forward for journalism education should start by addressing the inequities that strain the profession and the academy still today. This process can start by incorporating bold recommitments to truth-seeking, diversity of viewpoints, fostering dialogue and monitoring the powerful without feeling beholden to doing it within the traditional power structures and confines of an outdated model of academia and student media. That is, we caution against doubling down on the past as a bastion of free speech. Nostalgia for the days of traditional media and the days of abundant funding will not be able to overcome some of the systemic, nuanced issues currently impeding journalism education and student media.
Despite our concerns, we retain a spark of hope for the future. One of the biggest barriers to progress is silence — silence from administrators, silence from colleagues, silence from others who don’t want to lose social capital, silence in the form of avoiding conflict and confrontation, silence from using delay tactics to quiet vocal alumni who get (reasonably) distracted as the months go by. Students at IU, though, should be encouraged; your faculty have courage. During our independent journeys at IU while dealing with administrators, other vocal faculty were our lifelines. Tiny tips toward justice occurred both during and after our departures. And, now, we are witnessing an IU journalism faculty, as well as the expanded Media School faculty, more united than ever in their voice and capacity to act. These faculty members are working diligently to support their distressed students, try to find answers and connect with concerned constituencies. This collective allyship is long overdue and is encouraging to witness.
Their work now is a lesson for us all. Our voices are vital for rallying a critical mass of people who care about freedom of speech and journalism education. As administrators maintain they must wait for the next task force to complete its work, it is up to all of us to keep free speech and inclusive journalism education in the news. There were times in the past that collective action might have helped change the trajectory of journalism education and scholarship at Indiana (and elsewhere). The fight has begun, and we commend the faculty and students pressing their administrators to do the right thing and rebuild trust at IU. However, for the rest of us who care about IU and the broader system of journalism education in this country, now is not the time to sit back and wait for old patterns to repeat. It’s time to keep talking and start building something new.
Jessica Gall Myrick, PhD, received her Master of Arts in journalism from the former IU School of Journalism in 2007. She also wrote (briefly) for the IDS during her time as an IU student. From 2013 to 2017, she was on the faculty, first of the IU School of Journalism and then at the IU Media School. She is now a Senior Clinical Scientist at Cook Medical.
Danielle Brown, PhD, served on the faculty of the IU Media School’s Journalism Unit from 2017 to 2020. During that time, she served as an advisor for the school's chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ). She is now the 1855 Community & Urban Journalism Professor at Michigan State University.
