Indiana University fires student newspaper adviser who refused to block news stories
Tensions between Indiana University and its student newspaper flared this week with the firing of a faculty advisor who refused an order to remove the magazine’s print editions and keep the news out of the homecoming edition.
As the school prepares to celebrate the Hoosiers football team, administrators may be hoping to minimize distractions this graduation weekend. highest national ranking ever. Instead, the controversy has embroiled the school with questions about censorship and the First Amendment rights of student journalists.
High-profile supporters including student media advocates, Indiana Daily Students alumni and billionaires Mark Cuban They condemned the school for stepping into independence.
The Daily Student is regularly honored among the top college publications in the country. It receives about $250,000 a year in subsidies from the university’s School of Media to help make up for declining advertising revenue.
On Tuesday, the university fired the paper’s consultant, Jim Rodenbush, after he refused an order to force student editors to ensure that no stories about homecoming celebrations were published in the print edition.
“I had to make the decision that would allow me to live with myself,” Rodenbush said. “I have no regrets. In the environment we are in, someone needs to stand up.”
IU says student journalists still call the shots
A university spokesman, citing an AP reporter in a statement released Tuesday, said the campus wanted to shift resources from print media to digital platforms to address both the students’ educational experience and the newspaper’s financial problems.
Chancellor David Reingold issued a separate statement Wednesday, saying the school is “firmly committed to the free expression and editorial independence of student media. The university does not and will not interfere with their editorial decisions.”
University officials announced late last year that they would reduce the print edition of the cash-strapped newspaper from weekly to seven special issues per semester, tied to campus events.
The newspaper is publishing three editions this fall that add special events sections, Rodenbush said. He said last month Media School officials began asking why the special editions were still containing news.
Rodenbush said IU School of Media Dean David Tolchinsky told him earlier this month that the expectation was that the print editions would contain no news. Rodenbush argued Tolchinsky that Rodenbush was actually the publisher of the newspaper and could decide what to publish. He told the Dean that publishing decisions were solely up to the students.
Tolchinsky fired him on Tuesday, two days before the commencement ceremony print edition was published, and announced the end of all Indiana Daily Students print publications.
“Your lack of leadership and ability to work in alignment with the University’s direction toward the Student Media Plan is unacceptable,” Tolchinsky wrote in Rodenbush’s termination letter.
The newspaper was allowed to continue publishing news on its website.
Student journalists see ‘scare tactic’
Andrew Miller, editor-in-chief of the Indiana Daily Students, said in a statement that Rodenbush “did the right thing by refusing to censor our print edition” and called the termination “an intentional scare tactic against journalists and faculty.”
“IU has no legal right to determine what we can and cannot print in our newspaper,” Miller said.
Mike Hiestand, senior counsel for the Student Press Law Center, said First Amendment jurisprudence dating back 60 years shows that student editors at public universities determine content. Hiestand said advisers like Rodenbush couldn’t intervene.
“It’s on and off, and it’s very strange that this is coming out of Indiana University,” Hiestand said. “It would be one thing if this was coming from a public university that didn’t know any better. But this is definitely coming from a place that should know better.”
Rodenbush said he was not aware of any news the newspaper had published that might provoke executives. But he suggested the moves could be part of “general progress” by administrators trying to protect the university from any negative publicity.
Prevented from publishing a print edition, the paper published a series of sharp stories online last year, including the unveiling of a new film criticizing the detention of pro-Palestinian demonstrators, a tally of campus sexual assaults, and an FBI raid on the home of a former professor suspected of stealing federal funds.
The newspaper also reported allegations that IU President Pamela Whitten plagiarized parts of her thesis; The most recent story was published in September.
