Olivia Vest
Managing Editor
Journalism programs, which exist functionally at community colleges and universities to teach students just like me and my peers the art of newswriting and the purpose of educational discourse, are nearly vocational training. Through trial and error and with the help of esteemed professors and advisers like my own Amy Chastain and Hutchinson’s Alan Montgomery, we learn within our educations the meaning of journalism.
In my two years at Butler, I’ve written many stories—a few of which have made a bit of a… negative splash. I’ve ruffled some feathers, but I’ve made friends in handy places. And… isn’t that what I’m here to learn? Students flock to facilities like Butler and Hutchinson Community College (HCC) for affordable educations. We come with the goal of learning without much debt, and we often are pushed under the rug because, yes, we may have fewer resources than the folks at four-year universities.
To censor student journalists, especially those of us at community colleges who have fewer resources to stable our backs, is to serve as a dictator in our educations. To remove our “watchdog” nametag, you remove the very function of our future professions. You disappoint us when you undermine us, and when you do so, you destroy the very foundation of the educational environments upon which you’ve built your institutions.
As a student journalist, I’m skeptical (because I’ve been trained to be) that the staff of The Hutchinson Collegian was disciplined at the hands of a simple personnel matter as HCC’s administration so dutifully claimed. In fact, I’m confident in my speculation, which serves as the same opinion of many others, that certain stories The Hutchinson Collegian published caused HCC’s administration to take unwarranted and disconcerting initial action to perhaps desist further abashment at the hands of those students and advisers serving as writers and editors for their school’s paper.
Here at Butler, an institution that I love, I’ve seen faculty members and administration take a defensive attitude towards articles published in our paper. When mistakes are made at the hands of our young writers, the prodding pen comes out and instead of harboring an educational and positive attitude, a neurotic resistance is posed against us. We’re sometimes told we must have administrative permission to run certain stories and it has often been insinuated that our publication is intended to paint our institution in a positive light.
But this vocational training isn’t for public relations. No, it’s for journalism. And though I’m unsure of the motives of the HCC administration or my own at Butler, I can say with certainty that I don’t want to present the facts in a positive light. I want, quite plainly, to present the facts. And that’s what we as reporters intend to do.
In a time where journalism is perceived so negatively, it is incredibly alarming to me that our own President Donald Trump views this profession as unnecessary for a goal that is definitively self-promoting. It is even more frightening that local matters, like the issues at HCC, reiterate this impossible idea that the First Amendment of our Constitution is unwarranted, or that, because we are students we are simply vulnerable to discipline because we speak words that paint our institutions in a negative light.
This is a call to action. Teachers and administrators, please recognize that when you place an umbrella of irrelevance on our programs and our professions that you do so much more harm than good. Recognize, please, that now is the time to harbor learning and education, especially when those of us who want to use our pens for good, despite an openly negative public attitude, are told we are moot. Encourage curiosity and learning, and we will thrive.
Signed with unanimity,
Butler Lantern staff
