By Emily Thorsen
Since the Trump Administration returned for a second term, student journalists across the country have been fearful for their safety as their constitutional freedoms of free speech and free press are being stripped away before their very eyes. Barely a month into his second term, Trump limited which publications could question him during news conferences. This administration’s intentions are clear: destroying the democracy this country has worked so hard to create for its citizens.
Trump has signed countless executive orders within only the first one hundred days of his second term as president, including one on Jan. 29 saying his administration will combat anti-Semitism. In turn, ICE agents targeted Rumeysa Ozturk for deportation, a Turkish citizen and Tufts University student, for her work in publishing an opinion piece criticizing the Tufts administration for their continued contribution to the Palestinian genocide. Ozturk has since been transported to an ICE detention center in Louisiana, an intentional move in that Louisiana has the loosest state laws concerning prisoner treatment and overall center conditions.
Trump’s executive orders have set us back as a country, but do not let his hostile actions scare you into submission. That is what he wants, for you to feel so swept up in current events that you feel helpless and unable to do anything that will make a tangible difference for others.
Instead, we must come together as a collective to incite action that will hit him where it hurts: his wallet. Put your money where your mouth is!
In addition to facing challenges from the federal government, journalists at the college level are struggling to make their voices heard on campus. A recent piece published in The Orion, the student newspaper at California State University, Chico, shows firsthand the treatment student journalists are receiving from school faculty and administration. Students are being referred to emailing potential sources instead of more pertinent forms of communication, such as meeting face-to-face.
I can personally attest that this advice will get student journalists nowhere. Any kind of publication is engulfed in deadlines at all stages of the production process. No one has time to wait around for a faculty member to answer your email. Chances are, they won’t even see your email in their already-flooded inbox.
Any person in a prominent position at a university should be prepared to be questioned about their work and the motives behind their prior actions concerning the school and its students. It is the student journalists’ job to obtain this information, no matter how annoying you may find us. Students and community members, both on and off campus, deserve to know what is happening at their school and how their tuition money or taxpayer dollars are being used.
These actions by school officials make it harder for student journalists to execute their jobs effectively. This, combined with the way Trump wants to control information in the media, will not make journalists’ lives any easier once we graduate and join the already-struggling workforce. But it is our duty and responsibility to our fellow Americans to report the truth and nothing but the truth, because it is the bare minimum of what democracy deserves.