Why are higher education media so important and why do they need to be independent? In Utrecht, five panel members are sitting in a row, facing an audience of stakeholders. About half the room works for the higher education media; other attendees include editorial board members and freelancers.

The panel members have been invited by journalist union NVJ and association for science journalism VWN, who have identified a “worrying trend”. They are sounding the alarm following a series of incidents in which the freedom of press in higher education have come under pressure.

Watchdog

Social scientist Linda Duits, who − amongst other things − wrote columns for Amsterdam university magazine Folia, kicks things off. Universities are big, powerful institutes and participation councils and independent media used to be able to keep them in check. “That’s all come crumbling down”, she asserts. “Journalism must serve as a watchdog, but you can only be a watchdog if you’re not being paid by your master, because then you won’t bite.” She says it’s an “unhealthy, dictatorial construction”.

There are countless examples. In Eindhoven, the university magazine’s website blacked out when the publication of an article about the rector’s conflict of interests was prevented and the editor-in-chief was sidelined. This even landed editor Bridget Spoor, one of the panel members, in a whistleblowing case.

Several media at universities of applied sciences have also had to fight for their freedom. The Rotterdam magazine Profielen was recently embedded into the communications department. We would have preferred not to make this switch, the editor-in-chief wrote in a commentary. Before that, an incident at HAN University of Applied Sciences had made the national news. An interim manager at the communications department was frustrated with a column on ‘bullshit jobs’ and had his own response placed above that column on the website.

Less pessimistic

“We’re paid by the university, so that’s something we have to deal with”, acknowledges Willem Andrée, editor-in-chief of Wageningen university magazine Resource. “You have to be fortunate enough that the board understands the university needs a thorn in its side.” He believes this is the case in Wageningen.

Financial dependence doesn’t have to be a problem, says editor-in-chief Ries Agterberg of Utrecht-based DUB, who’s in the audience. Above all, you must properly arrange things. “The national news is also funded by the government.”

Agterberg also disagrees that things are that bad: “I am somewhat less pessimistic.” If anything, recently there have been all kinds of great examples of science journalism in higher education. Take Delta, which demonstrated how Delft University of Technology is inadvertently collaborating with the Chinese army. Or Ad Valvas, which discovered everything that was going wrong at the psychology faculty.

“I’m not entirely dissatisfied either”, says editor-in-chief of Delta Saskia Bonger. “It’s difficult at times, but that’s also kind of fun.” You can’t really complain about administrators dodging questions sometimes, she says, because they all do that.