The director of student media at Indiana University was fired amidst a dispute between university leadership and editors at the Indiana Daily Student over what content gets printed in the student newspaper.
As director of student media, Jim Rodenbush did not directly oversee or have any say over the content published in the IDS, per a charter between the IDS and the university. But he told IndyStar his firing follows a series of meetings with IU Media School leadership in which it grew increasingly apparent they were expecting him to officially prohibit students from publishing news.
“We are alarmed, but not shocked, by this Media School administration’s decision to terminate Jim based on his commitment to defending our First Amendment rights,” student Editors-In-Chief Mia Hilkowitz and Andrew Miller said in a statement. “All Media School and IU students, faculty and staff should be scared by this blatant attack on someone standing up for what’s right.”
IU spokesperson Mark Bode said in a statement that the campus is shifting resources to prioritize digital media over print while addressing the publication’s financial deficit. The university won’t comment on personnel matters, he said.
“Editorial control remains fully with IDS leadership, and the university will continue to work closely with them to ensure the strength, sustainability and independence of student media at IU,” the statement reads.
Rodenbush received his letter of termination during a meeting with Media School Dean David Tolchinsky on Oct. 14. In the letter, Tolchinsky said university leadership lost trust in his ability to communicate on behalf of the university. It noted he is not eligible to be rehired by IU.
“Your lack of leadership and ability to work in alignment with the University’s direction for the Student Media Plan is unacceptable,” Tolchinsky said in the letter. “Therefore, we are moving forward with your separation from the University, effective immediately.”
Rodenbush joined the IDS in May 2018 after the university pushed up the resignation of its previous student media leader. The paper’s student leadership described the situation at the time as “significant overreaching decisions that are threatening the independence of the IDS.” Then-Media School Dean James Shanahan rebutted the assertion, saying the school had never sought to influence the paper’s content.
Portrait of former IU student media director Jim Rodenbush
Content of IDS newspapers at center of dispute
Rodenbush’s exit comes as the university is pressuring student leadership to remove news content from its upcoming Oct. 16 print paper. Citing financial difficulties and a new business action plan, the IDS reduced its print production last January to seven times per semester.
The business action plan was crafted by IU leadership using the proposals, but not the direct input, of an ad hoc committee of students, alumni and professional staff within student media. The IDS had undergone a steady decline in print advertising revenue in the past two decades. The IDS effectively ran out of money in 2021 and was permitted by the Media School to operate at a deficit for three years starting in the 2021-22 fiscal year. By 2024, the IDS had amassed a deficit of over $500,000.
Among other things, the action plan effectively merged the staff and resources of the IDS, student radio station WIUX and student television program IUSTV into a single “umbrella organization” and whittled down the IDS’s print schedule from weekly publications to a few “special editions” throughout the semester.
“Special editions,” like the Homecoming and Little 500 editions, have long been published by the IDS as newspapers with both regular news and special inserts. But in recent months, Rodenbush said, Media School leadership had sparred with the IDS about what “special editions” meant.
According to an Oct. 7 email the IndyStar obtained, Rodenbush passed on guidance from the Media School administration that the IDS’s print publication should solely focus on a special theme, such as homecoming or fall sports, and contain “no other news at all, and particularly no traditional front page news coverage.”
Termination letter of IU student media director Jim Rodenbush
Legal expert decries ‘blatant censorship’
Mike Hiestand, senior legal counsel at the Student Press Law Center, said the university’s attempt to control what goes into the paper is impacting editorial content and therefore constitutes “blatant censorship.”
“The suggestion that the students have to put out a homecoming edition that is devoid of anything that might resemble news or anything other than talk of the homecoming activities,” he said, “I mean, that’s ludicrous and absolutely illegal.”
In their statement, student journalists Hilkowitz and Miller said the administration is attempting to stifle both their ability to publish news and conversations about the future of the publication “that could conflict with (administrators’) decisions.”
“Dean David Tolckinsky and Associate Dean Galen Calvio have a clear misunderstanding that the Indiana Daily Student, and the Media School, is meant to benefit students — not their own self-interests,” the statement reads. “The Indiana Daily Student will continue fighting for our right to publish and report the hard stories, even if administrators want to stop us.”
IndyStar First Amendment reporter Cate Charron is a former editor-in-chief of the Indiana Daily Student, the student newspaper at Indiana University in Bloomington.
The USA TODAY Network – Indiana’s coverage of First Amendment issues is funded through a collaboration between the Freedom Forum and Journalism Funding Partners.
Have a story to tell? Reach Cate Charron by email at ccharron@indystar.com, on X at @CateCharron or Signal at @cate.charron.28.
Reach Brian Rosenzweig at brian@heraldt.com. Follow him on X/Twitter at @brianwritesnews.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: IU fires student newspaper adviser amid dispute over IDS content
