Going to a university is like living in a tiny town, and the population is your fellow students and faculty members.  The same way that people rely on local news to find out what is going on in their community, we rely on our student newsroom to report what is happening on and around campus. Removing the newsroom from a college would be the equivalent of taking away a town’s local news, a vital component of any thriving community.

Unfortunately, America is currently facing issues with news deserts cropping up all over the place, which is negatively affecting small towns across the country.  People deserve to be informed about the issues, events, and changes in their communities. The local news is essential to have an educated and intelligent general public. The Rocky Mountain News former editor, publisher, and president John Temple said that locals are “deprived of an understanding of and ability to make informed decisions about issues of local government…The current world does not lend itself to supporting the economy of local news.”

The last thing we need is an uneducated society. If we take away local news, which includes student news, then we are taking away a huge part of what keeps our country progressing.  We need to be constantly aware of national and local issues to understand what we are voting for, what social movements are happening and why, and so much more.

Currently, there are about six wealthy and extremely powerful corporations that control the bulk of the popular news outlets that we read and watch, thanks to pack journalism and media consolidation. Our news is not nearly as diverse as we assume it is, which is hurtful if we are trying to be a more open-minded, accepting, and well-informed country.

Students are the future of America, and if we take away their tools to better themselves, how can we possibly expect a positive outcome?  Imagine living on a campus for four years with no student newsroom informing you of the pertinent issues and important events around you.  No way of learning how other students feel about national and global problems.Nothing to read every day that might actually challenge your beliefs and change your mind about something.  These are the people we are going to send out into the real world soon. e want them to be the best, most intelligent and highly qualified people they can be.

We cannot fail this generation of students.  As a country, we have not done our job of informing the public about what they need to know, so let’s not make the same mistakes with the young minds, the next generation of American workers.