Webster Alum Jim Rodenbush Fights for Student Media

For seven years, Webster University alum Jim Rodenbush oversaw Indiana University’s (IU) student newsroom. That ended this fall, when the university fired him for refusing to censor the Indiana Daily Student (IDS), an incident that has since drawn national attention to press freedom on college campuses.

Rodenbush said IU administration wanted any form of news to be removed from the newspaper’s homecoming print edition, but he refused. After meetings with media school administrators defending the editorial independence of IDS, the university’s administration fired Rodenbush via termination letter.

“Your lack of leadership and ability to work in alignment with the University’s direction for the Student Media Plan is unacceptable,” the letter read.

The IDS’ current co-editors-in-chief, Mia Hilkowitz and Andrew Miller, released letters from the editor defending the student newspaper and its right to publish news in their print edition.

“They are all resilient, and they didn’t blink. They haven’t blinked an eye standing up for their staff and for the newsroom, and I’m sure that it’s been difficult, because nobody signs up to be the center of a national story and have your adviser fired as part of your first semester on the job,” Rodenbush said.

The story quickly drew attention from universities and news outlets across the country.

“The Media School’s order limiting the Indiana Daily Student’s print edition to homecoming coverage isn’t a ‘business decision’ — it’s censorship,” the Student Press Law Center said in a statement to the IDS. “This disregards strong First Amendment protections and a long-standing tradition of student editorial independence at Indiana University.”

The chancellor of IU wrote a letter to the editors explaining the incident, as well as the rationale behind firing Rodenbush.

“Let me be clear: my decision had nothing to do with the editorial content of the IDS. And contrary to what has been posted on social media and published, Indiana University has never attempted to censor editorial content, period. The IDS is, and remains, editorially independent,” David Reingold, chancellor of IU said.

Rodenbush was the director of Student Media at IU for over seven years, but he fell in love with being a student media adviser long before, right here at Webster University.

His pursuit of journalism began in 1994, when he entered Webster University’s doors to obtain a journalism degree. He was part of the Webster Journal each semester as a staff writer, and even as sports editor.

“My college newspaper was a very formidable time for me,” Rodenbush said. “And certainly drove home the point that journalism and reporting was something that I wanted to do with my life.”

Rodenbush went on to work in journalism, mainly covering sports. But in 2009, an adviser position found its way to him. He emailed the head of the journalism department at Webster simply looking for an adjunct professor job and was offered the position to be an adviser for The Journal.

“I’m fond of telling people my student media adviser training at Webster was giving me a key to the newsroom and telling me good luck,” Rodenbush said. “Webster trained me for two different careers, my professional newsroom career and then my student media advising career.”

His connection runs deep, not only with his education and advising career, but also in his love life. In 2013, Rodenbush married his wife near the Sam H. Priest house.

After working in newsrooms for a while, the journalism spark he once fell in love with died down. Like any career, it became simply a job. He had other things happening in his life – a family, a mortgage. But becoming a student media adviser reignited that spark.

“Getting back into the student side of things got me excited again for journalism,” Rodenbush said. “The process of journalism, the figuring things out, the learning aspect of things, were things that I just got so far away from, I didn’t even know I had lost them until I was back in the student environment.”

After advising at Webster, Rodenbush was hooked. He moved on to work at Penn State as the newsroom adviser there, amid the Jerry Sandusky scandal. After that, he worked at Colorado State University before finally ending up at IU.

Under his leadership, the Indiana Daily Student won multiple awards. Rodenbush himself was nominated at the Associated Collegiate Press Spring National College Media Conference for the Pioneer Award in 2024.

He explained that student media is important because it’s the first opportunity for students to apply what they learn in the classroom in a real-world circumstance.

“It’s perfect chaos for everything that it represents and everything that people can learn from it,” Rodenbush said. “It deserves to be defended, advocated for and celebrated.”

Rodenbush’s fight is not over. He filed a lawsuit for wrongful termination on Oct. 30.