College campuses and high schools have become, yet again, flashpoints in America’s long-running battle over free speech. As administrators and students debate the best path forward for open discussion of sensitive issues, there is no more important beacon of free speech than student newspapers.
The free press is what illuminates our democracy and grants us the vision to create and navigate a strong civil society. By joining school newsrooms, students learn to observe, listen, and interrogate — your ask questions of your communities and engage with the world around them. You gain the skills to think critically about the things they care about, and discover how to share those concerns with others.
While adults increasingly seem to shy away from difficult conversations around the social and political landscapes of our nation and beyond, student journalists show unparalleled courage to face these issues head-on. Take the writers and editors at The Daily Pennsylvanian, for example, who got ahead of local news outlets to report the resignation of their university president, Liz Magill, following backlash to her commentary on antisemitism at a congressional hearing.
This isn’t the first time students have shown up at the center of the debate. Pick an era, and you’ll find students were there covering what mattered: Occupy Wall Street in 2009, the Iraq War in the early 2000s, the Vietnam War in the 1970s, or desegregation in the 1950s and 60s. Those eras were their eras — a step out of the classroom and onto a plane, into a march, up to a podium.
Like each generation before it, Gen Z is no monolith. Its politics are fluid and still forming. But also like prior generations, this one is developing that identity through the pages of its newspapers. By reading a student newspaper, you get a clear line of sight into what Gen Z cares about, the issues keeping it up at night, and how its brightest minds hope to change the world.
As a magazine whose mission is to amplify young journalists’ voices nationwide, we are thrilled to announce the Students United News Network (SUNN). SUNN’s goal is to unify student journalists across the country and harness their power — an energy multiplied when they stand together. We’ve designed SUNN to elevate the best student journalism while providing young people the resources and connections they need to build out a robust media pipeline for years to come.
In each issue of Watch Us Rise, we seek to syndicate the best stories from SUNN newsrooms and commission new work from students in our network. This month, we have our first syndication-only issue, with pieces culled from the dozens of student newsrooms that have already joined SUNN. This tenth issue features reporting and opinions on topics including Super PACs, ChatGPT, capital punishment, women’s sports and biracial identities, plus hot takes on thrifting and gossip.
While SUNN helps us curate great student work, it also gives students access to conversations with top professional journalists, a network of like-minded peers, and a greater audience to grow the impact of their work. These students are filling a gap left by the erosion of local news networks, and their voices deserve to be heard far and wide.
Gen Z has been maligned as both overserious and uninformed, but its student journalism shows a generation wrestling earnestly with problems big and small. School shootings and phone bans, A.I. and activism. Young Americans are worried about cultural prejudice and capital punishment, just as they try to puzzle through the ethics of gossiping and student council. Our syndicated pieces this month serve as a cross-section of a generation’s mindset, its troubles and hopes and visions of a better future.
As SUNN grows, Watch Us Rise will reflect the viewpoints of an even wider range of students across the country. We believe in the power of student journalism, not only to express what matters to Gen Z but also to effect real change and advance our democracy. We’re already so proud of what we have to offer, and are thrilled to join the lights that student newsrooms so expertly keep alive.
