In its wave of slashes to funding on various organizations, including the National Institute of Health, the Department of Education and the National Science Foundation, the Trump administration is aiming to dismantle the fundamentals of American innovation under the guise of reducing the deficit and gutting DEI programs.
In especially political attacks, the administration has used funding as leverage to exert its control over education and independent journalism. It has halted billions of dollars in funding to higher education, primarily Harvard and Columbia University, purely on the basis of unfounded ideological differences.
Trump has also instructed the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to cease funding NPR and PBS, labelling the two networks as biased, radical and “woke propaganda.” In his executive order, the president claims that CPB’s funding of the two networks fails to reflect its principles of impartiality.
“Which viewpoints NPR and PBS promote does not matter. What does matter is that neither entity presents a fair, accurate, or unbiased portrayal of current events to taxpaying citizens,” the order states.
This is a blatant attempt to dictate what information is acceptable and accessible to the public eye. Actions like these are not only largely authoritarian, but also seek to undermine the autonomy of academic institutions and dismantle the role of journalism in a functioning democracy. Within this sweeping attack on universities and journalism, an especially vital population stands vulnerable to the fallout: student newsrooms.
Student journalism plays a crucial role in local reporting. In 2023, the University of Vermont’s Center for Community News (CCN) found that 1,316 universities and colleges were located in or adjacent to “news deserts,” counties with one or zero local newspapers.
“The less information that a community has, the fewer informed decisions they can make about their democratic government. Democracy is incumbent on a free press, and that counts,” said the CCN program manager, Sarah Gamard, in an interview with The Hornet.
Her team published an impact report in May 2025 that documented a 27% rise in newsroom-academic programs over 2024. These programs connect student journalism departments or news outlets with local publications, publishing content that has been reviewed by faculty or staff. Such partnerships include Cal State Fullerton and Voice of OC, the University of Southern California partnership and Crosstown, along with The Hornet’s election coverage collaboration with the Fullerton Observer.
“You have people in these local governments who aren’t getting covered at all; therefore, people don’t know what their local government is doing. Student media and student reporters can help fill those news gaps,” said Gamard. “Every four years we’ll make a decision on the president. Every two years we’ll make a decision on Congress. But every day, people can show up to their town or city council, or call up their local representatives, and have a much bigger influence on what happens in their own backyard.”
Student journalists have stood at the forefront of serious topics, but many are still punished for valuable reporting. Reporter Dilan Gohill, the Stanford Daily reporter, was arrested in June 2024 at a pro-Palestine protest despite clearly identifying himself as press. Tufts University graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk wrote an op-ed in the Tufts Daily criticizing her university’s response to calls for divestment from Israel, leading to her being arrested by plainclothes Homeland Security Agents and sent to a Louisiana ICE detention center.
David Barstow, a four-time Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist and chair of the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, says he’s noticed this disregard for the role of journalists.
“If you look around the world at autocracy, what you see is dictators who completely determine and dictate what the public is allowed to know,” said Barstow in an interview with The Hornet. “It’s why there’s this thing called the First Amendment. It depends on our ability to speak freely about matters of public concern and to be able to deliver inconvenient facts.”
“Some of our political leaders have done a really good job of framing the idea of independent, free press as somehow being anti-America,” he added. “I think what we’re up against right now is a larger effort to delegitimize the idea of an independent free press and instead try to gain a monopoly over what information we get to know, what information we get to argue about, what information we get to see to help us understand the world that we live in.”
The support to local democracy that student journalism brings is especially detrimental when considering that the impact of federal funding cuts to NPR would largely affect their over 1,000 member stations, who receive about 10% of their funding from the federal government. An estimated 98.5% of Americans live within range of these public radio stations broadcasting local news.
Cutting off support for independent news means cutting off support for a functioning democracy, and directing that aggression towards academia jeopardizes the future of ground-breaking student journalists and their careers after they graduate. The loss of these overall lead to more news deserts, less local news coverage and a waning of an informed public. As freedom of the press in the United States falls historically low, supporting these futures has become increasingly essential.
We are witnessing a tidal wave of First Amendment violations fundamental to our ability as journalists to report on our communities, our local governments, the concerns of Americans and the wrongdoings of the presidential administration. In wake of sweeping arrests of protesters and dissenters, the hunting down of international students who dare voice their opinion, and the apparent dismantling of due process protected by our Constitution, the barrier of protection between independent journalism and an authoritative state is wearing dangerously thin.
Just as the future of any innovative field relies on the determination and grit of its students, the future of free press, truth and democracy relies on the integrity of student journalists. In protecting academia, independent reporting and student newsrooms, we protect the values that shape an informed society.