{"id":179875,"date":"2025-06-10T11:52:42","date_gmt":"2025-06-10T09:52:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=179875"},"modified":"2026-01-16T16:27:35","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T15:27:35","slug":"press-freedom-at-higher-education-media-remains-under-pressure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2025\/06\/10\/press-freedom-at-higher-education-media-remains-under-pressure\/","title":{"rendered":"Press freedom at higher education media remains under pressure"},"content":{"rendered":"

Administrative meddling can sometimes thwart editors of higher education media, and intimidation by students and activists increasingly puts academic press freedom under pressure. Editors push back by setting clear boundaries, having more robust statutes and being open about their decisions.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\tImage by:<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPauline Wiersema<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>

After months of conflicts with the university administration, the editors of Cursor<\/em> (Eindhoven University of Technology) blacked out the website in October 2023: a protest against the chief editor\u2019s suspension. A year later, the Executive Board of TU Delft forced the news medium Delta<\/em> to remove a critical article, and in 2022, hackers took down the website of the Maastricht news medium Observant<\/em>. They accused the editors of \u2018transphobic language\u2019. These and other high-stakes conflicts around academic press freedom have made the national press in recent years. What is the current state of press freedom in higher education media? And what lessons do editors draw from such incidents?<\/p>\n\t

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Erasmus Magazine and Profielen (our colleagues from Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences) are organising a conference on journalism in higher education on Thursday 12 June. In the lead-up, we celebrate press freedom with a series of articles.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\t<\/div>\n

Fixation on image<\/h2>

Bridget Spoor was pretty \u2018flabbergasted\u2019, she says afterwards. As editor at Eindhoven University of Technology\u2019s news medium Cursor<\/em>, Spoor had been told that editor-in-chief Han Konings would not be publishing her article about a professor\u2019s transgressive behaviour. Not because she did not have enough sources or evidence, but because the editorial board did not agree. Although Konings was formally allowed to publish<\/a>, he still refrained from doing so because of serious tensions with the Executive Board. He also refused to publish a critical piece on the new rector some months later. \u201cHe was like, it\u2019s a good piece, but publishing it will wreck relations with the board and invite reprisals\u201d, Spoor says. \u201cWe\u2019ll lose funding, or lose our jobs. And I said: if that argument is in our heads, we are already lost.\u201d<\/p>\n

Afterwards, an independent commission ruled<\/a> that the university administration had violated the internal rules around Cursor<\/em>\u2019s press freedom by exerting mental pressure on the chief editor.<\/p>\n

Controversies around press freedom in higher education media have not just sprung up in the last few years. Ries Agterberg, chief editor of DUB<\/em> (Utrecht University), says administrators\u2019 fears of unpalatable news about their campus rose particularly sharply in the nineties. A neoliberal political trend encouraged institutions to engage in constant competition and to be fixated on their own image. \u201cThis profiling by the universities themselves has abated a bit\u201d, according to Agterberg. \u201cBack then, they were much more sensitive about negative news leaking out. Today, you find they mainly try to avoid giving offence, for example around diversity. They ride along on a given trend.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even so, potential reputational damage caused by negative news remains a sensitive issue for many executive boards, as interviews with eight news platforms show. For example, Saskia Bonger, chief editor of Delta<\/em>, talks about the strained contact with certain press officers who have since left. \u201cThey would often question our integrity. If we had questions, there would be a protracted discussion on whether they were the right questions. It was obvious to me this was intended to get us to doubt ourselves. It was clear gaslighting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Weak editorial statute<\/h2>

Edith van Gameren, chief editor of Profielen<\/em> (Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences) says the editorial staff has disagreements around press freedom once a year on average. \u201cThere\u2019s always friction. Suppose we find a shortcoming in the quality of education. We will ask the Executive Board for their response, since the university\u2019s purpose is to provide good education. At that point, they may try to pull the emergency brake by going to the editorial board. A game of sorts will then ensue: What\u2019s the point of writing this? Did we observe the rules of good journalism?\u201d<\/p>\n

The editorial board bases its judgment on the editorial statute, but journalistic independence is not the statute\u2019s leading principle. \u201cOur statute says we must serve the interests of the university of applied sciences\u201d, Van Gameren points out. \u201cThat\u2019s a formulation that allows for restrictions on what we can write. When does transparency stop serving the institution\u2019s interests?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t

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\n\t\t\u2018All the checkboxes are ticked now, which gives me peace of mind\u2019\n\t<\/blockquote>\n\n\t<\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n

The situation of Profielen<\/em> is not exceptional. At Cursor<\/em>, too, things got out of hand partly because of an editorial statute that prohibited journalists from harming the institution\u2019s interests. The editorial statute has since been replaced with a robust document that better enshrines Cursor<\/em>\u2019s press freedom. \u201cIt feels like a buffer now, a protective layer that fits like a glove\u201d, Spoor observes. \u201cWe\u2019ve also been allowed to nominate people with journalistic expertise for the editorial board. All the checkboxes are ticked now, which gives me peace of mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Delft, the conflict between Delta<\/em> and the university administration also led to a revision of the editorial statute, and other editorial boards too are currently revising their charter. Although the editors of Resource<\/em> (Wageningen University & Research) are rarely on a collision course with the current Executive Board, chief editor Willem Andr\u00e9e prefers to err on the side of caution. \u201cOur statute will now also get an additional sentence saying that Resource<\/em> cannot be used for any particular interest. It is not marketing. Universities are funded by public money and that simply involves a countervailing power.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bullying with money <\/h2>
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\n\t\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\tImage by:<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPauline Wiersema<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>

Like some other higher education media, the UKrant<\/em> at the University of Groningen is run by an independent foundation. According to chief editor Rob Siebelink, this makes the buffer between the newspaper and the Executive Board just that little more shockproof. \u201cFormally speaking, I can give the president of the Board the proverbial middle finger. No one can touch me in my capacity as editor, because I don\u2019t have to answer to the Executive Board.\u201d Notwithstanding, he puts this privileged position into perspective. \u201cThe Board does have the ability to say: we value an independent press, but next year you\u2019re getting less money. This happened about seven years ago. It was presented as necessary cost cutting, but it was just bullying. In the final analysis one is always dependent in that sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

The importance of money as something that stimulates press freedom comes up in several of the interviews with editorial staffs. Asked if he is free to write what he wants, Jan Ligthart of Bron<\/em> (Fontys University of Applied Sciences) answers with a resounding \u2018yes\u2019. Whether he has the time to do so is a separate matter. \u201cWith three FTEs, we\u2019re the least funded medium in the realm of education. Our immediate neighbour, Cursor<\/em>, has an editorial staff of over six FTEs, although their university is a third the size of Fontys. Sometimes the editorial board comes up with good tips and I think: yes, I thought of that myself, but with our staffing we just can\u2019t get that done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harassment<\/h2>

It is not only administrators who sometimes make things hard for higher education media. Students, too, regularly make themselves heard because they disagree with the content or, on second thoughts, they want their name removed from the website.<\/p>\n

Once something appears on the Internet, all and sundry can find it back even years later. Editor-in-chief Wieneke Gunneweg of Erasmus Magazine<\/em> remembers when students once tried to haul away stacks of newspapers because they were unhappy about the content. Anyone seeking to cancel a publication now must prevail on the editors to take it offline. Attempts to do so can sometimes take on nasty forms, Gunneweg says. \u201cA few weeks ago, we ran a story about a party for queer students of colour. One of our freelancers who likes going to such parties wrote a feature on it. It escalated drastically, although we simply worked conscientiously and in accordance with journalistic rules. Our employee was intimidated really badly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gunneweg now finds there is greater pressure on press freedom from disgruntled students than from troublesome administrators. \u201cI\u2019ve seen this in the last few years. I sometimes trace it back to the COVID period, when social developments became turbocharged, with groups pitted against each other. Everything you find in society also enters the universities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t

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\n\t\t\u2018Polarisation and hardening stances are something of a feature of society. But when you find yourself going to the police three times, it does give you pause for thought\u2019\n\t<\/blockquote>\n\n\t<\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n

Siebelink recognises this. \u201cI usually have more problems from that angle than from the university administration. Last year, for example, pro-Palestinian activists set up a tent camp next to the editorial office. I come from the newspaper world, I\u2019ve been in wars, so threats don\u2019t get to me easily. But what they did back then was intimidating. Attacks would be ad hominem: \u2018Rob Siebelink, you are the chief editor, you have blood on your hands if you\u2019re not for us.\u2019 That kind of thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last year, there were three occasions when Siebelink felt he had to report threats and harassment to the police. \u201cPolarisation and hardening stances are something of a feature of society. But when you find yourself going to the police three times, it does give you pause for thought.\u201d<\/p>\n

To avoid anger and misunderstanding, Gunneweg tries to be more transparent about journalistic decisions. In accountability boxes, Erasmus Magazine<\/em> explains how articles were created. In parallel, the chief editor has begun to monitor her own boundaries a little more closely. \u201cIn the past, when people walked into our office seething we\u2019d drop everything and have a dialogue with them. There came a point when I said: right, we\u2019re not going to go on like this. If someone\u2019s angry, fine. Can we settle the matter in five minutes? If we can\u2019t, you\u2019ll just have to make an appointment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t

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