The student journalistic landscape is changing. 

While one could argue it is always changing, this time in history seems specifically significant. Christine Fernando of the Associated Press put it this way in a recent article, “The need to consider high-stakes safety risks has increased pressure on students in newsrooms that are meant to be learning labs for future journalists.” 

One just needs to look at Rumeysa Ozturk who was detained by ICE  and believes it was for co-writing an article that criticized Tufts University for their stance on Palestine.    

Reaching out to different journalists that report for the Observer, whispers have been making the rounds in the small NECC journalism community. These whispers highlight a possible trend, where journalists are having issues finding people willing to go on record.  

Tristan Taylor the features editor of the Observer felt that people are more reluctant to go on record. Taylor has been the Features Editor for about three semesters. First, he believes he had trouble finding the right people to talk to, but for the last two semesters he believes that it’s more because people are worried about seeming political even when the topic is not.  

When asked why people today might feel more comfortable posting on social media but are still reluctant to go on record, Taylor said it’s “easier to hide behind a screen and a fake name.” 

Social media can provide a feeling of anonymity. He believes that it’s mostly reluctance and that the best way to counter that is to “try and make people as comfortable as they can be.” Honor what is on and off the record and become someone that your source can feel comfortable around.  

Brianna Burgos, Observer Web editor and entertainment beat reporter hasn’t had many issues with people being unwilling to go on record, instead she found that “it depends on the topic, and how many people know about it specifically.” 

Once she found those people who most wanted to tell their stories. Burgos believes that it’s harder for a reporter that might be personally invested in a topic. She found picking a topic she was excited about didn’t always translate to finding people who knew about that topic, which led to some of her difficulty in finding sources. 

Since NECC is a community college, most of the reporters at the paper have limited tenure, so it was important to reach out to Mary Jo Shafer, the current Journalism and Communication program coordinator at NECC and the faculty adviser to the Observer. She has been the advisor for 15 years and can put things in a long-term perspective. Shafer identifies two major situations that have made changes in the reporting landscape. 

The first being the pandemic, she believes that at the “height of the pandemic some people lost some of their social/communication skills.”  

The other change Shafer notes is the political situation, and threats to freedom of speech. The reason people may not want to be interviewed are nuanced, and she believes that, “people are scared about hot button topics… they are scared cause now are people going to find me and harass me?” 

Shafer notes that this is making things harder for student journalists and mentioned one student that had trouble finding sources for a story on baseball.  

All this distrust seems counterintuitive to our society’s current social media usage. When asked about the difference in people’s willingness to post their every thought but not necessarily talk to reporters, Shafer attributed it to control and distrust. Sometimes people think reporters are biased and will twist words, or they worry about the power they are giving someone.  

This distrust seems to be going both ways; Fernando of the Associated Press reported that the Student Press Law Center released guidance about taking down stories or content. 

Students nationwide  are scared and have been asking to be removed from bylines or simply requesting their stories to be taken down. 

This distrust seems to go both ways, but how can we bridge this gap of distrust? 

Is there something every day Americans can do to help build back bridges that have been broken? 

It’s not necessarily any one person’s fault, but who will be willing to bridge the gap, and is it a gap that you feel is important to close?