Last Thursday morning, while The Whit Staff was distributing their second edition of the year, another student newspaper just a few hours away was searching their campus for their publication’s newsstands, which were missing from university buildings just a day before newspaper distribution. 

The Daily Collegian, Penn State University’s independent newspaper, reported on Sept. 19 that all thirty-five indoor newsstands, along with the newspapers which were inside of them were confiscated by the university, after running six paid voter registration advertisements and three paid Kamala Harris advertisements on nine of the stands. 

The Whit spoke to several Collegian staff members earlier this week to better understand the situation. 

According to Editor-in-Chief, Amy Schafer, The Collegian had an informal conversation before the confiscation with their General Manager about a potential issue with the advertisements. However, it wasn’t until the newspaper stands were taken away that herself, or any of the staff members were officially notified that their newsstands were violating the university’s policies.

“We received a notice on Thursday after the stands had already been missing. They did send us a notice telling us that we violated advertising policy and that they were going to remove our stands. That was kind of after the fact. So, like, we were never informed beforehand,” said Schafer.

According to Schafer, the paper had been accepting and running ads in this medium for years. 

“We bought those specific racks with the ad space on them two years ago, and we’ve been advertising for two years with no problems, but the university policy, I do think states that you can’t advertise. So, we may have been in violation of university policy, but it was just never clearly communicated to us that we were violating university policy,” Schafer said. 

For Business Manager, Zack O’Brien, the lack of communication from the university left the staff confused, with questions about why the violation wasn’t communicated with the staff before the university felt the need to take action themselves. 

“The kind of question that me and my staff, and the editorial staff here at The Collegian are wondering is, you know, number one, why did we not get told about this? We could have taken them down ourselves… Question number two is, why were our newspapers confiscated if it specifically, in the policy says it does allow for advertising through newspapers?” O’Brien said. 

Staff was also shocked by the seemingly impulsive nature of the removal.

“We expected an open line of communication but instead, the University took down all of those ads themselves on Wednesday night, and they didn’t tell us at all that they had any plans to take them down,” said Sam Woloson, managing editor.

Another important detail to note is The Collegian is completely independent financially, this year, they received $0 in funding from the university. This makes their advertising sales even more crucial to the paper’s operations.

The newsstands were returned by the university, without the papers or the advertisements on Friday, the day that The Collegian distributes its print edition. While this didn’t have an impact on some of the stands, for some locations, the newspaper did not receive a new paper because they were returned after the papers had been distributed. 

“Some of the stands were back prior to paper distribution, but some of them weren’t. So there were a few stands that didn’t get papers placed on them because they put them back Friday afternoon, and it was after our distribution had already gone out, so the stands never got the new paper,” Schafer said. 

The Whit Staff believes that Penn State University’s actions last week constitute a threat to free speech on campus, and to collegiate press freedom. By removing their newspapers and newsstands, the university took away a valuable resource for students and faculty, even if it was only for a short period of time. 

To not notify the staff beforehand sends out a message that the university does not care about their student journalists or the work they put in each week for their community.

While to some, this may seem like an isolated incident at one university, public universities, including Rowan, should learn from this situation and value their student journalists for the hard work they do each week.

The Whit also empathizes with their recent loss of funding, as last spring, our own budget was slashed by 35%, leaving it up to the staff to raise funds independently in order to continue operating as a weekly newspaper. 

Student newspapers consistently publish content throughout each semester that is free of university bias or PR agendas. In addition, they manage business operations like advertising and manage a large staff of their peers. Having a source of objective, independent news is a resource that is necessary for students and faculty to be properly informed on their university, and their community at large. 

The Whit Staff stands with The Daily Collegian staff through this difficult time and encourages Rowan students, faculty, and administrators to do so as well.

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