Student journalism protects liberty on college campuses, according to Collegian editor-in-chief and senior Maggie Hroncich at a student journalism panel on Oct. 21.
“Thomas Jefferson once said that liberty depends on freedom of the press, and I think the same is true for on-campus liberty,” Hroncich said.
Seven student journalists, including Hroncich, joined Senior Journalism Fellow Mollie Hemingway for a panel discussion titled “Student Journalism and the Battle for On-Campus Liberty.”
The discussion was part of Hillsdale’s series on “Reversing the Ideological Capture of Universities” at the Allan P. Kirby, Jr. Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship in Washington, D.C.
Julie Hartman, a 2022 Harvard University graduate, described how her political positions changed during the riot-filled summer of 2020, in part through the influence of Prager University videos. When Dennis Prager invited her to appear on his radio show, she made the “grievous mistake” of accepting.
“I had a lot of people unfollow me on social media. I had friends stop being my friends. I even had the TA in one of my classes say that if my presence offended the other students they could move to another section; it was insane,” Hart said.
Hart now has a show with PragerU called “Dennis and Julie.”
Hroncich said she is fortunate to be at Hillsdale, where students respect each other’s freedom and professors encourage debate. She said in her journalism internships she has interviewed many college students who feel scared to share their opinions on campus.
“If student journalists can’t even question their own college,” Hroncich asked, “why would we expect them to question anything else?”
Chris Philips and Daniel Schmidt, students at the University of Chicago, shared their experience asking questions when their university hosted a “disinformation conference” that included guests like CNN’s Brian Stelter. Philips and Schmidt, who work at the Chicago Thinker, the university’s conservative paper, became “the people the speakers were terrified of” at the lecture, according to Hemingway
Philips asked Stelter how Fox News could be “the enemy of the people” when CNN pushed the Russia collusion hoax and the Jussie Smollett hoax. Schmidt asked Anne Applebaum, a staff writer at The Atlantic whether she regretted dismissing the Hunter Biden story as a conspiracy theory after the New York Times confirmed it was true. Her answer, according to Schmidt, was that she didn’t find that interesting.
Hemingway said the most effective opposition to the millions of dollars spent on disinformation has been from Philips, Schmidt, and other student journalists.
“The left is so loud, so militant, so vocal,” Schmidt said. “Conservatives have to be just as loud and have to be on the offensive.”
