News

Some of the best stories start with a FOIA request

(From left) Theo Scheer, Alex Walters and Owen McCarthy after they accepted the Student Press Law Center and the Joseph L. Brechner Freedom of Information Project's Student Freedom of Information Award for their work with public records at Michigan State University. (Photo by Kimberly Margolis)

Student reporters at Michigan State explain how public records helped them uncover misconduct, investigations and hidden decisions.

Why I joined SPLC: An intern’s perspective on defending the student press

New Voices logo

Myesha Phukan is an advocacy intern for the Student Press Law Center and a co-winner of the 2024 Courage in Student Journalism Award. If someone asked me what New Voices was three years ago, I would have looked at them with a blank expression. Now, if the same person asked me that same question today,… Continue reading Why I joined SPLC: An intern’s perspective on defending the student press

Cash-starved and censored, America’s student press is in crisis

Saj Sundaram, a student journalist for the University of Oregon's Daily Emerald, covers protests in downtown Eugene in January 2026. (Courtesy of Robert Scherle)

For years, student press advocates have been frantically pointing toward the gathering clouds that gravely threaten college news organizations: money problems, censorship and disengaged campus audiences. With a federal government that’s rewriting the rules on press freedoms and higher education, those clouds have become a perfect storm that’s rocking independent student media.