Rachel McClurg
Managing Editor
Within the past couple of months, two Kansas student publications are facing threats of budget cuts. The Sunflower at Wichita State will receive just over half the budget next year that they received this year. Emporia State’s The Bulletin, on the other hand, is facing a 12 percent funding cut, which is approximately $10,000.
“During this process, my staff and I have worked tirelessly to make it known to [Associated Student Government] ASG, the campus and the community how important it is that we retain our full budget,” The Bulletin’s Editor-in-Chief Rayna Karst said.
Both universities have recently covered controversial events that occurred on campus. Specifically, The Sunflower was targeted by several university officials because of their constant coverage of negative events going on at Wichita State.
“The cuts are absolutely retaliation for our coverage,” The Sunflower’s Editor-in-Chief Chance Swaim said. “We continue to print the stories we do because it’s our duty as journalists to seek truth and report it, not shake our pom poms for the state.”
Cuts like The Sunflower and The Bulletin are facing can be detrimental to the staff when all factors are taken into account. Many student publications pay their staff, so with cuts like these they will either resort to not paying some of the staff or laying them off all together.
“The cut from two years ago has resulted in a smaller staff, fewer funded educational opportunities, a cut from printing three times a week to two, fewer special sections and smaller papers,” Swaim said.
The Bulletin staff also believe that their funding is being cut because of the amount of coverage of “Jane’s Story” a student at Emporia State that was sexually harassed by her professor and kept a secret by the university. The university, however, claims that their intention behind the budget cuts is to decrease the cost of tuition.
“We’re dedicated to serving our campus, especially through the role of watchdog journalism, as we did with “Jane’s Story,” which uncovered how sexual harassment complaints were handled at ESU and sparked community wide debates,” The Bulletin’s Managing Editor Allie Crome said.
In Kansas, students have the right to write about anything they please. That being said, the threat of censorship still looms over student journalists everyday.
“With the recent cuts at Wichita State’s {The} Sunflower, it has become a concern that budget cuts could be used to silence student journalists,” Karst said. “We are working to combat this potentially harmful precedent in any way we can.”