Hoosier Journalistic Paragon?

“WE ________ JOURNALISTS MUST STAND TOGETHER.”

That all-caps headline ran on the front page of a newspaper a few days ago. Can you fill in the blank?

[Waiting…]

If you guessed “WHITE HOUSE,” just know that we find your naïveté sweetly (but sadly) endearing.

If you guessed “PENTAGON,” you are getting much warmer.

And if you guessed “STUDENT,” come collect your winnings (which consist of our admiration for your brilliance)

This all came about after administrators at Indiana University cracked down on the Indiana Daily Student newspaper. IDS editors had planned to include actual news in the print edition, not just gauzy stuff about homecoming and football. The university thought that real journalistic content should go only online, and halted this and future print editions. Then, David Tolchinsky, dean of the Media School, fired the director of student media who wouldn’t cater to the university’s demands.

To the ramparts marched the journalists at The Exponent, the student paper at Purdue University. They published around three thousand copies of a “solidarity edition,” which they distributed at their rival campus, a couple of hours away. Students deposited the papers, with the “WE STUDENT JOURNALISTS MUST STAND TOGETHER” cover, at around thirty newsstands on the IU campus. The content was almost entirely the work of Purdue students, with headlines like “The Exponent stands with the IDS after director fired, paper censored” and “At Indiana University, the journalism school forgot what journalism is for.” As Exponent editor Olivia Mapes wrote, “Prohibiting the IDS from publishing the news…defeats the entire purpose of a newspaper.” Purdue folks also covered the cost, less than a thousand dollars, Exponent publisher Kyle Charters told me.