About the guest:
For the past 16 years, Jim Rodenbush has worked with award-winning student media organizations, helping to mentor the next generation of journalists. Most recently, he served as Director of Student Media at Indiana University and taught in The Media School. During his time there, the Indiana Daily Student won 12 Pacemaker Awards and was twice named College Media Outlet of the Year. Before coming to IU, Rodenbush managed student media programs at Colorado State, Penn State, and Webster universities. Along the way, he taught courses in reporting, writing, editing and media management. Rodenbush is a frequent conference speaker and former president of WAUPM and executive director of the Indiana Collegiate Press Association. He holds a bachelor’s in journalism from Webster University and a master’s from the Newhouse School at Syracuse University.
Episode Transcript:
MATT JORDAN: Season four of News Over Noise officially launches in January. But this conversation felt too timely to hold. Our guest is making headlines due to an active lawsuit, so we wanted to share this conversation early. Enjoy this preview of what's to come.
CORY BARKER: In the fall of 2025. The Indiana Daily Student, one of the most respected student newspapers in the country, published a series of stories that didn't sit well with the university leadership. They cover topics like campus safety and administrative decisions. These weren't sensationalist pieces. They were solid, straightforward journalism. The kind of stories that hold public institutions accountable. But behind the scenes, administrators began to push back. According to reporting by the Indianapolis Star and the Poynter Institute, leadership at Indiana University's Media school began questioning how the student newsroom operated and what stories it chose to run. They allegedly asked the paper's advisor, Jim Rodenbush to stop students from publishing certain pieces, particularly those critical of the university.
MATT JORDAN: Rodenbush says he made it clear he wouldn't tell his students what they could or couldn't print. Soon after, he was fired. The university offered little explanation, but for journalists and educators across the country, the message felt unmistakable. Even student newsrooms aren't immune from institutional control. The events at IU are about more than just a personnel dispute. They raise larger questions about who controls information inside public institutions, and what happens when that control starts to look more like censorship and stewardship. To help us understand what happened at Indiana and what it says about the larger fight for press freedom on campus, we're talking with Jim Rodenbush, a longtime student media adviser and former director of student media at IU. Jim spent 16 years mentoring young reporters for his time at Indiana University. He managed student media programs at Colorado State, Webster University and here at Penn State. Jim Rodenbush, welcome to News Over Noise.
JIM RODENBUSH: Thank you very much for having me.
MATT JORDAN: Obviously, this case is at a time when there is a lot of discussion about the role of the free press and about the role of student media in a larger media ecosystem. And I just wanted to ask you some questions about the niche that student journalism serves at Indiana University and beyond.
JIM RODENBUSH: I would say specifically at Indiana University, you're looking at student media outlets, not just the Indiana Daily Student, but also, you know, Indiana University student television networks, radio. Those are outlets that are filling a coverage need. You know, Bloomington, Indiana, is no different than a lot of towns across the country that are seeing declines in staffing at their local newspapers. Changes to the structure of their local newspaper, to where there are things that simply aren't being covered or aren't being covered like they used to because there aren't available reporters. And so, you're seeing it everywhere that student media outlets are kind of, you know, plugging that gap and providing critical coverage to not just the towns that they are in, but the campuses that they cover. And I think that's a huge void that they're that they're currently filling.
CORY BARKER: Jim, as a two-time alum of IU and a former staffer and a desk editor at the IDS, it's it’s a real great honor to chat with you, unfortunately, under these circumstances. But to follow up what you were just getting to there about student journalists filling this role, especially in growing news deserts. Can you talk a little bit about how you and your student journalists thought about that? You know that editorial conversations that are happening related to how students might cover Bloomington, broader Monroe County, southwest Indiana, those sort of things, south central Indiana. Can you give us a little insight about what those conversations have been like?
JIM RODENBUSH: Yeah, I think within the last 2 or 3 years. And I'm, you know, I'm speaking specifically to the ideas. I think there has been a real focus on not just coming to the ideas to, you know, the practice skills or to come to this learning lab, this training ground to be reporters. But the students have started to ask themselves, like, what does it mean to be in this role? And with that comes this increased focus on, okay, who are our audiences and how best can we serve these audiences? And the real transition and thinking was inherently; you think that the student newspaper is covering the campus that it's on. But we have begun to notice really, really significant increases in our audience numbers and our newspapers being picked up by people within the Bloomington community. And when you begin to pay attention to that, and you begin to ask yourself, okay, what does that mean? And how can we better serve this new crop of audience that is coming our way? The students really jumped into the mission of, okay, how can we cover Bloomington in a way that is productive? And what you are seeing, if, you know, if you take a deep dive into the IDS, is government reporting happening, schools and education being covered, you know, the type of areas to where you're serving an audience and telling them what important things are going on in their community. It's been a really great transformation because it reflects that these students are not just thinking about what they can gain from a student paper, but they're thinking about how they can serve at the same time. And it's been it was a really been a pleasure to have to be alongside of that for the last handful of years.
MATT JORDAN: It's interesting that, you know, often when we discuss local news, we talk about how important it is for bringing home larger issues to places where people understand their, their, the places they belong, where they feel a sense of community. And really, universities right now are at the front line of a whole lot of national things going on because of the attacks on universities, the visa denials to students, all of these policies that are really come home to roost in the local universities. How did your students go about covering those issues and bringing the stories about local impact home to audiences?
JIM RODENBUSH: I don't know if there was any real magic formula, you know, there at the student media level. What I've said before is that you are as close to a professional newsroom setting without being a professional newsroom setting, and I think it wasn't anything other than like, this is these are the important issues that are going on. Like, you know, they didn't have to, you know, think really hard about that because, you know, as 18- to 22-year-olds, these are also issues that are impacting them directly. And so, if you begin to think about it that way, it's not really that difficult to grasp on to the things that you should be covering. And again, I don't think there was any other any magical answer than just being aware of the world and the campaigns that was going on around,
CORY BARKER: You know, one of the issues that's come up quite a bit in the controversy related to the administration's decisions related to the IDS that affect you in the potential printing of the IDS, which at this time of recording has now subsequently been rolled back, that they are going to allow printing of issues of the IDS moving forward. But a lot of the conversation sort of surrounding this idea that the cost of printing and that the audience has migrated primarily to the internet or digital spaces to some extent, that's obviously true, right? We see that across the industry, outside of student media, just in more professionalized media, that the cost of publishing and printing and the emphasis on digital at your time in the IDS or even more broadly in your career. How do you see the ways in which student media has responded to further migration among the audience to the internet and digital? What sort of strategies do you think are working in that regard?
JIM RODENBUSH: And it's a really important question at the student media level, because there is at least some prevailing thought that students are still really attached to the to the print newspaper. And, and I know that the IDS they, they receive some of that blowback when they have, you know, in fact, fought for their paper, like the printed paper, not just recently, but a handful of times over the years, the IDS specifically made that transition to digital years ago. You know, the IDS publication simply became one of many products that the ideas had to offer the community. The strategy from the IDS side, and it really has evolved for them since 2017, 2018, really a trend, you know, and I would say maybe even a couple of years before that, the real the real strategy was to be everywhere that your audience is, and you are still reaching people through the print product. And I will defend the need to have a visible print product, but you have people that are reaching you through the desktop, through the phone, through whatever social media platform they may be engaged in. And I you will find the IDS all over the place. And I think the strategy, the most simple strategy is, is to be aware of where your audience is and meet them where they are. And I think the IDS is an excellent job of that.
MATT JORDAN: One of the issues that that has been striking me lately is that you're also at the epicenter of two, let's call them messaging campaigns to be gentle about this, where both the universities and the free press are under attack, because both have been cartoon in a way. Right. “Universities are filled with woke kids who have got the mind virus, and the free press is the enemy of the people.” Did that campaign against universities and the Free press come back in the form of backlash or flak against the IDS in a way that you were aware of or made aware of during this time?
JIM RODENBUSH: Well, that's a good question. I'm I mean, maybe. Maybe not in the moment. Do you recognize that certain things are happening? But now I can look back and say, sure, there were some things that you can point to. For example, it was approximately a year ago when the idea, its first print edition following the president election featured a cover of Donald Trump with various not flattering quotes about him that were in fact delivered by people who had worked and who were associated with him. That cover drew some backlash, including a pretty prominent tweet from the incoming lieutenant governor in the state of Indiana. That was a pretty direct thread about what the IDS is publishing and what it can be done at the state level to correct it. You know, at the time, your concerns maybe not concern to the level that in hindsight that you should have been. But, you know, it's things like that that are that are interesting. And if you combine that just with the general idea of what eventually became this order from the university level to remove news from the newspaper, it kind of all makes sense that the trickling down to the student media level was, in fact, happening. And it's been happening for a little while.
CORY BARKER: If you can think back now to your time at IU and at the IDS, are there other things that now sort of, in retrospect, you point to as potential signs of some of this pretty clear external pressure that's coming even from the governor's office and lieutenant governor, that's then trickling down to what I think can best be said as a sort of controversial presidential administration there at the university. Are there other things that have happened over the last few years that you now point to and think, you know, that's kind of how we got where we are with the state of the publication and your removal.
JIM RODENBUSH: Yeah. I would point to perhaps the past couple of years that, you know, it's been the past two years were a very uncomfortable time on the IU campus in general. You know, if you go back to, you know, the beginning of the Israeli-Hamas conflict, if you go to the what eventually morphed into the demonstrations Dunn Meadow, you know, IU caught a lot of national attention when it had essentially a sniper pointed at its own students as part of those demonstrations. We were on the receiving end of criticism and backlash for our coverage of those protests and our coverage of the issue in general that were unlike anything I had experienced in my time with student media. When you're talking about particularly direct threats of safety to our editor-in-chief at the time, not anything that I have ever dealt with before, being a student media advisor means a lot of things, but during that time period, it meant for the first time that I have to call Indiana University police to talk about the safety of my reporters, and that coincides with so much stuff that was happening at IU that, you know, the transition during the current, as you said, the current president and the current administration at the IU level really has coincided with things changing for the IDS. And again, in the moment, maybe you don't recognize such things because you're not you're not thinking, worst case scenario. But now it's kind of easy to see that, that the things that have happened to the IDS just kind of line up with the campus environment in general.
MATT JORDAN: If you're just joining us, this is News Over Noise. I'm Matt Jordan
CORY BARKER: And I'm Cory Barker.
MATT JORDAN: We're talking with journalist and educator Jim Rodenbush about what his firing from Indiana University reveals about press freedom, institutional power, and the state of student journalism. This is a case where it kind of bumps up against the First Amendment to some degree, but it certainly has a lot to do with the power of economic coercion. You know, I think there are six universities right now that after the, you know, the Gaza protests that you mentioned are under investigation from the current administration in Washington for supposed anti-Semitism. And each of those have been… there have been whispers about the, you know, potential financial blowback. And, you know, when you threaten the universities with hundreds of millions of dollars of lost revenue, you're this is kind of an extinction level discourse, right? So, it's not exactly government coercion, but it looks a lot like it, don't you think?
JIM RODENBUSH: You know, they you can connect the dots, right. Of the things that have been going on at IU, specifically, again, the protests and as a result of those protests IU, you know, made several changes, to its policies that all but wiped out the ability to demonstrate like that on campus, moving forward. There have been budget pressures at the state level have been severe, you know, programs being cut, a lot of scaling back on things that had been there before. You know, Indiana in particular, the governor of the state can now appoint every member of the board of trustees and Indiana. And so, it's really easy to connect the dots that you're, you know, as a university, you're in a position where you are likely trying to make sure that nothing is coming from your campus that's going to bring unnecessary attention to you. And particularly bring any unnecessary attention to you at the state level.
CORY BARKER: During these pretty complicated times at the university and for student media, what struck you the most about how your student journalists sort of responded to this environment, the surrounding context, threats on their lives or safety for doing their job right as student journalists? I mean, what do you want to share or can you share about the response from the student reporters working in that environment?
JIM RODENBUSH: Oh, well, yeah, I, I can't say enough good things about the student reporters at the IDS and particularly the student leadership at the IDS, you know, brave, determined resolve to do the right thing and, you know, that's exactly what I would have expected and have expected over the years. But doing that in a situation when it is becoming increasingly easier to just fall in line with things that are being asked of you, I think makes that kind of courage stand out even more. And I think, you know, in the case of the IDS, that's a product of years of student leadership. You know, the words culture, right? This newsroom culture of, of how to approach the job and how to think about their work and their value and what they really are doing for the community. Yeah, forever proud of those of those students.
MATT JORDAN: Increasingly in the national media landscape, in the current political environment, there has been, I guess, what you call a shift away from journalism towards something else, right? Something that might look a lot like public relations or strategic communication. So, there's a kind of pressure from the powerful to move toward public relations that's portrays itself as news. Is that something that you think that universities are particularly susceptible to, given the way that universities are so intent on strategic messaging to their community, to their alumni, etc.?
JIM RODENBUSH: Yeah, absolutely. You know, and again, I could speak specifically to my experience at IU that there, there was, a very visible de-emphasizing of journalism in favor of the broad term that I would use as communications. You’re teaching people to deliver very, plain messaging on, on events that are happening around actual, you know, there is an investigative center that's located within the media school at IU. And so, you know, that that kind of thing is there, but it becomes it has become increasingly more difficult to not only practice journalism within the confines of a university, but to get the kind of, university not just at the administrative level, but at the media school level, to get the kind of support that is really helpful in making sure that you're properly training journalists. And so, you know, I've been at some other universities and there's many that are still trying to do it the right way, but there are many that are struggling with this idea of what it means to practice journalism within a landscape of universities that are looking for everything except that coming from their student media products. And so, yeah, it's absolutely an issue.
CORY BARKER: You just mentioned this, but you've worked in student media for a long time, including here at Penn State with The Daily Collegian. From your point of view, how has the position or the role of student media on college campuses changed?
JIM RODENBUSH: Well, it's been a struggle for survival, right? I mean, if you have these kind of learning labs and these climates that are meant to mimic, you know, the professional world, you can't necessarily be surprised when the struggles of the professional world also make their way to the student media level. And that's both financing. I only I know that the Daily Collegian has had its own financial questions and issues at the university level, with funding being removed and whatnot. And so, it's an interesting mix of things, because I think that the general survival of student media organizations is a very, very real problem. At the same time, I think the work coming out of student media organizations is better than it's ever been. And so, you have this kind of thing where these students are filling these voids that we talked about earlier, and then they are doing it in, you know, incredible ways. You know, I can go all the way back to when I was a student journalist years and years and years ago. And these students are, you know, writing and reporting and things that we never touched. And so, the work has never been better, but the future has never been murkier. So, it's kind of a weird, a weird space to live in right now.
MATT JORDAN: We were talking before about how the student newspaper is kind of going out more into the communities, is doing investigative reporting and whatnot. What has been the positive impact of that? I mean, how does that have the communities that the students covered responded positively to the stories, thereby showing the value of the student newspaper?
JIM RODENBUSH: Well, we had an, a local organization in Bloomington that awarded the IDS its Community Journalism Award at the start of the fall semester. I thought that was really, you know, that really jumped out because that was traditionally an award that they would give to the professional outlets. The IDS’ feedback over the last handful of years has been overwhelmingly positive, from the Bloomington community to the point of where, you know, a year ago, when the announcement was made that the frequency was going to go from weekly to once every couple of weeks, the response that we got from the community was disappointment was in like, you know, encouragement for keeping some form of the project going and then our engagement and our audience numbers when it came to coverage from the community has skyrocketed, which, you know, that that alone is, is a good measure of something working is the fact that you have evidence that it's being read. And so the response from Bloomington has been great. But, you know, I believe Bloomington in general, to be a really good news community and a community that was wanting, that kind of coverage. And so I think it's been a positive relationship.
CORY BARKER: What do you think that the general public, or even alums of universities with great student media misunderstand or don't know about student media, that the people who work there, you know, its role in campus communities and larger communities. What do you think incidents like this at the IDS and at Indiana maybe sort of shine a brighter light on student media that the larger public and citizenry should know more about?
JIM RODENBUSH: It really is student led and student driven. I've had multiple experiences over the years, and I would say more so recently at IU, where people just assumed that I was in charge in terms of all content decisions. And I had many a conversation that began with some version of, you know, I'm not the editor, and I think people really need to understand and not just understand, but in and by extension, I appreciate and support the fact that it is students that are driving this surge in content and investigative reporting, like it's being student led and it's being student driven, and that's really a big deal because these are, in fact, your future reporters and your future media practitioners. And I think the kind of work and experience and exposure that they're getting right now is something that a lot of people should be paying attention to. And then, by extension, the role that directors are newsroom advisors or support staff have is something else that I think needs to really be paid attention to. Like, again, I have never made a content decision in all my time. I've never had, never wanted to because editorial freedom and editorial independence is a very, very real thing. But at the same time, when you when you have those kind of conversations, then people who don't understand tend to go to the very opposite direction, and then they think that you don't do anything at all. And I think the understanding that this is a true learning lab environment where the responsibility is with the students and people in my role are, in fact, serving as educators in this real-world scenario. And the fact that it is like it's beautiful chaos that that's happening at every student media organization. I think that is something that needs to be understood and appreciated more.
CORY BARKER: You know, tying some of these threads together. It seems to me that and I guess I'm speaking as a as a former student journalist, so I have a clear perspective on this, but that the work that student journalists are doing in these communities, that that is increasingly valued by people outside of the campus bubble, that student journalists in some ways are a potential outlet to rebuild trust in journalism, because you're getting that kind of first wave of awareness and patterns of consumption and news from your fellow students at an institution that you probably have some emotional connection to because you picked it as your university, right? And not to go another level as far as speaking to that importance and significance and the need for student journalism but how do you feel about that idea?
JIM RODENBUSH: I've had those have those conversations all the time. You know, I had the director roll the ideas, but I also taught reporting classes within the media school. And so, a lot of the people that were on the staff of the ideas were also students of mine in the classroom. And one of the things that I have talked about and championed is this idea that not only are you interacting with the community in a way that you that you know, but a student media outlet hasn't necessarily done so before, but you're also in this role of where you might very well be a person's first ever interaction with the media, and you're the first person that they've put their trust in to tell their story and how that interaction goes and how that relationship goes can go a long way in determining how that one person who was the source of your story feels about the media in general. Because again, you're touching stories at a local level where people may not have had their story told before. And so, there is great importance and great responsibility in that relationship, not just for the success of the IDS, but about a bigger picture of just like you said, of rebuilding perception and trust in how the media operates. And, you know, I you know, I think news at the professional level, there's it's difficult to even for people with the best of intentions. It's difficult. Right? You know, the one thing that I can say about the student media level is that you can be certain that the student journalists that you are encountering are 100% trying to do it the right way. And so, I think that alone is crucial that, you know, they have this approach, they've been given this great responsibility and how that can, you know, somehow improve the greater perception of journalists, I think is a very real thing because like everything else, it starts at the local level. Right? And so, if you have people within Bloomington that have a positive outlook on the IDS, you would hope that that can only extend to other outlets and up the ladder when it comes to journalism and media.
MATT JORDAN: Has the Indiana student media extended beyond Bloomington at all. I mean, have they moved into the spaces in Indiana that are real news deserts there where there isn't any coverage?
JIM RODENBUSH: We had begun a project just at the very start of the fall semester, where we were extending into the into a neighboring town of Albertville to begin to cover that community in the same way. Obviously, I won't be around to see how that goes, but I do know that the goal behind that was to, in fact, take this Bloomington centric coverage and at least begin to see if we can apply the IDS to some neighboring towns. And then you occasionally, you know, there's been Indianapolis based stories when they've been of like particular importance to Bloomington on the campus. But in terms of like community centric, that's really just this semester had been the start of kind of expanding beyond Bloomington.
MATT JORDAN: Jim, thanks so much for being with us and to letting us know about, what's going on there. I wish you the very best in whatever your future endeavors are. And thanks again for talking with us.
JIM RODENBUSH: All right. Thank you both.
CORY BARKER: Thanks Jim.
MATT JORDAN That's it for this episode of News Over Noise. Our guest was Jim Rodenbush, former director of student media at Indiana University. To learn more, visit newsovernoise.org. I'm Matt Jordan and I'm Cory Barker. Until next time, stay well and well informed. News Over Noise is produced by the Penn State Donald Bellisario College of Communications and PSU. This program has been funded by the office of the Executive Vice President and Provost at Penn State and is part of the Penn State News Literacy Initiative.
[END OF TRANSCRIPT]
Episode Credits:
Producer: Lindsey Whissel Fenton
Audio Engineers: Mickey Klein, Scott Gros, Clint Yoder
News Over Noise is a co-production of WPSU and Penn State’s Bellisario College of Communications. This program has been funded by the office of the Executive Vice President and Provost at Penn State and is part of the Penn State News Literacy Initiative.
