“Try not to grumble too much”, was the advice my predecessor Riki Janssen gave me. Writing in this space about what goes on in the office shouldn’t become a litany of woes about whatever we happened to find unfair or frustrating that week. But it’s hard to resist when the topic dropped in your lap is press freedom. Next week, we will meet up with colleagues from higher education media outlets across the country for a conference on democracy and journalism in Rotterdam. The organisers have dubbed this week “Press Freedom Week” and asked us to write about issues like uncooperative press officers, unforthcoming representative bodies or unreliable university administrators.
But what if things aren’t actually all that bad here, and we’re not dealing with the kinds of conflicts our counterparts in Eindhoven and Delft are? Sure, we’ve had to navigate the issue of persistent students – like a few years ago, when a discussion with a student group called Feminists of Maastricht spun wildly out of control and they demanded we amend an article about free menstruation products. If we didn’t, they would “mobilise [their] community”.
In today’s polarised debate about the Gaza conflict, student protestors are noticeably wary of the press. They tend to withhold their names and cover their faces with scarves. “Everything online is traceable”, they point out.
The fear of speaking out extends even to harmless topics. My colleague Deborah Blekkenhorst recently asked students how they feel about UM’s internal communication, like faculty and university newsletters. Several interviewees asked to remain anonymous, saying, “I don’t want this following me for the rest of my life.” But named sources matter; they give an article credibility.
Or take the student we recently interviewed for a personal story. As a courtesy, we sent her the article ahead of publication. She panicked and emailed back: “I’m sorry, it’s too personal – I’ve changed my mind, I don’t want it published.” Full stop. And she wasn’t the only one in the past six months. It seems many young people in particular don’t quite realise that’s not how things work in journalism. Will we need to start bringing consent forms to every interview?
While Observant isn’t subject to top-down censorship, we do operate in a social climate where fear, vulnerability, privacy concerns and anxiety about digital permanence all play a role. These concerns are valid – but if people are too afraid to speak their minds on the record, our ability to report the news is under threat.
A litany of complaints? Hardly. I’d call it critical reflection.