Keep Writing
By Irmak Ersöz
For me, it all started with Theo Baker.
I remember meeting him a couple of weeks before his rise to fame. We were at The Stanford Daily building to surprise my friend, who was an articles editor at the time, with a dorm-made cake. Even at midnight, the newsroom was bubbling with intense discussions marked by sarcastic institutional commentary and lots of laughter. The dreamer in me would like to think that Theo was toiling away to expose then-Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne’s fake research data at the same time. I guess we’ll never know.
Frankly, I was confused by their dedication. Stanford is known for its dropouts pulling all-nighters over their startups, not twenty-something writers spending their nights making line edits and brainstorming crossword clues. But, in no small part due to The Morningside Post, I see the magic of student journalism now. And that night at the Daily was my first glimpse of it.
In the current hyper-consumerist era of modern media, where professional reporters face a flurry of layoffs and even The New York Times makes short-form video content, the place of student journalism might seem unclear. Why, at all, spend hours editing articles for sparse web traffic and occasional commentary at the Fishbowl—especially when other outlets are perhaps better equipped, better positioned, and certainly better funded to keep up with our ever-changing world?
The Cornell Daily Sun recently reminded us all why: One of its student journalists was the first to break Jane Doe’s story on September 18, two days after she filed a lawsuit against Cornell University and its Chi Phi fraternity chapter for its negligent handling of the alleged gang rape that took place in Cornell’s Chi Phi house.
The Sun was watching, even when the local prosecutor in Ithaca seemed to care more about avoiding criminal proceedings against Cornell than standing with Jane Doe. Moreover, its student journalists had a unique perspective into Jane Doe’s story—whether that was understanding the toxicity of Cornell’s fraternity culture, or how the university’s convoluted Title IX process has consistently failed victims of sexual assault. The very people who must live and contend with the acts of the Cornell 7, as well as the institution's response to them, have a markedly different voice with which to tell Jane Doe’s story. That proximity is what makes student journalism uniquely powerful.
This proximity is exactly what positions student newspapers as actors capable of catalyzing change. In exposing the former Stanford president’s fake research, in printing alumni letters demanding action from the Cornell administration, and in covering the very protests that Columbia works to silence, student journalism has not only encouraged students to believe in their own power, but has also forced institutions’ hands. Why else would Tessier-Lavigne resign, or New York Governor Kathy Hochul get her own prosecutors involved in Cornell’s mess?
Yet ironically, those very endowments are what help us keep the lights on in our tiny press rooms, where we write the very stories they don’t want us to tell. We send out reporters to cover protests against the administrators who work to shut our publications down with cameras paid for by the university. We print the issues that they want us to stop circulating on their dime. Maybe there’s something special about biting the hand that feeds.
What makes our relentless reporting under institutional constraints even braver is the hidden hand of retaliation that hangs over us. While Rümeysa Öztürk’s abduction by ICE for publishing an article mentioning Palestine in The Tufts Daily spotlit how existential retaliation can be today, many have been suspended and expelled for criticism even before the Trump era. As if robbing student journalists of their academic futures wasn’t enough, institutions have also deployed police violence against student journalists in the exercise of their journalistic duties, even as recently as in 2023 during Columbia’s protests for Palestine.
Besides retaliating against individuals, universities nationwide continue to defund student newsrooms and erect barriers to publication, citing funding constraints to hide their discomfort with accountability. The watching function of student journalism is often exactly the reason it faces censorship and retaliation. And yet, we keep writing. Why?
I think it’s because what we have to say matters.
The Sun could have waited for the Times or CNN to break the news of Jane Doe’s suit. The Spectator could have caved to administrative pressure and stopped reporting on the protests. And The Morningside Post could have stayed silent instead of reporting on Israeli money funding our studies, pro-Palestine protestors being silenced, institutional plays undermining our degrees*, and the Trump administration’s undying desire to influence who gets to be in the classroom. But we did not.
Sometimes, students and administrative staff at SIPA ask me if the risks we take are worth it. I contend that they’re not only worth it, but necessary. Our higher education institutions won’t hold themselves accountable, and neither will our political institutions. That responsibility too often falls on students writing the stories that raise the exact eyebrows they should.
As political institutions continue to divide, discriminate, and silence, student journalism has constantly found new ways to watch, listen, and amplify. Drawing from a fearless history of advocacy rooted in Civil Rights Era college unrest, student newspapers today sue presidential administrations, investigate endowments, and allow those silenced by institutions to still have a say. The fact that all of this is done by a mere band of students should give us hope for the future of journalism.
To writers and editors at college newspapers around the country: Keep writing. Break the story. Publish the op-ed. Empower your writers and contributors to be critical. Because if we don’t keep watch, maybe no one else will.
*See “Undergrads at SIPA: How Will GAPP Change the Graduate Experience?” by Elizabeth Shelbred