Lately, I’ve repeatedly been asked the same question: can Observant still do its work independently? Are we under pressure from university administrators or other parties trying to stop us from reporting on certain topics? Well, there’s always pressure, whether from students keeping the media at arm’s length while simultaneously complaining about a lack of media coverage or from people insisting their opinion piece be published in Observant. If we don’t do what they want, they tend to question whether we are as independent as we claim to be.
Block publications
But at UM, we don’t face the same issues as our counterparts at Eindhoven University of Technology and Delft University of Technology. The executive boards of those universities intimidated journalists from Cursor and Delta, respectively, in attempts to block publication of unfavourable articles. They likely didn’t realise how spectacularly this would backfire on them – it got them a lot of media attention.
Independent journalism
Here in Maastricht, we are free to do our work independently. I’m not saying the executive board likes everything we publish, but as an independent media outlet, we have little or nothing to fear from them. It’s as former journalist Fons Elbersen, who will be leaving his role as Director of Marketing & Communication at UM this month, once said: “If you didn’t already exist, you would have to be invented.” This sentiment was recently echoed in the Dutch House of Representatives by none less than the Minister of Education, who said, “Independent journalism and freedom of the press are a great thing, particularly in academia.” And: “I think it’s a very positive aspect of our academic culture that we have independent university media outlets.”
Reprimanded
By now, the Eindhoven executive board has been officially reprimanded. While they weren’t found to have engaged in systematic censorship, they did interfere with publications. Moreover, they put the since-fired editor-in-chief in a psychologically unsafe work environment and turned him into “a lame duck”. The university has promised to do better. New editorial statutes will be drawn up (it would be wise to remove the part where it says that Cursor must consider the “interests” of Eindhoven University of Technology) and the university’s executive board has been told to “maintain a professional distance from journalistic work” and be less quick to fly off the handle when Cursor reports on a matter they would’ve preferred to keep under wraps. I’ve said it before – maybe the Eindhoven administrators should turn to their counterparts in Maastricht for advice.