You can read the letter from the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communications professors here: https://eugeneweekly.com/2025/05/22/journalism-under-attack/
The following transcript was generated using automated transcription software for the accessibility and convenience of our audience. While we strive for accuracy, the automated process may introduce errors, omissions, or misinterpretations. This transcript is intended as a helpful companion to the original audio and should not be considered a verbatim record. For the most accurate representation, please refer to the audio recording.
MICHAEL DUNNE: I'm Michael Dunne. If there's a phrase that encapsulates our polarized world right now, it might just be the phrase fake news, while indeed, some news is absolutely fake, often pumped out by bots on social media, it's often a cudgel meant to undermine facts and information that a person disagrees with, none more so than President Trump, and while he didn't invent the phrase, he uses, it often and many true journalists believe his attacks are an existential threat on our democracy today on the show, you'll hear from two leaders at the U of O who were part of a cadre of journalism professors who wrote an op ed about this brutal threat to our First Amendment right under the current administration, and how journalists and the community at large must fight back. Will Yurman, an instructor at the School of Journalism and Communications at the University of Oregon, and Laurie Schontz, a professor of practice at the School of Journalism and Communications at the U of O, thank you both for coming in and chatting with us
WILL YURMAN: Happy to be here.
LORI SHONTZ: Thanks for having us.
MICHAEL DUNNE: You were the authors of a letter, along with colleagues that you, that you sent to the Register Guard and the Lookout and the Weekly. I want to talk about it. Why were you compelled to write this letter?
LORI SHONTZ: It's a moment that we have to stand up. Press Freedom is in danger. The First Amendment is under attack in a lot of ways. And we're journalism instructors, we feel very strongly about our students seeing us stand up, and we also feel very strongly about the community hearing this conversation. Sometimes this conversation sounds like it's too much about journalism. It's actually about the community. And so writing this letter, being here to talk to you makes a really big difference, because it raises awareness and it gives people a space to continue to talk to us as well.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Well, as Laurie just said, journalism being under attack. I meant here's political attacks and just economic attacks. There's been a lot of newspapers that have gone under I mean, is it kind of, you know that this is standing up for those attacks, but also pointing out that, you know, it's a different landscape than it was even 1020 years ago?
WILL YURMAN: Yeah. I mean, I think all that's true, the economic pressures and other kinds of pressures on journalism are separate from the current political climate. The letter was really written about the political climate and the pressures the administration, the attacks the administration is making on journalism, but yeah, journalism itself is under all kinds of pressures, and that could be an entirely different episode, if you want to have one.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Well, Laurie, I'm going to switch back to you. So you know, you have students who want to become journalists, or at least are very interested in pursuing that career path. What do you tell them in this time of unprecedented attacks, what do you tell them about the career choices that they're thinking of making, but just also as citizens in this democracy?
LORI SHONTZ: We tell them how important it is. We tell them it's a way to participate. We tell them that the attacks are the way we see this when we wrote this letter and when we've talked about this, this is not a partisan issue for us. This is a core issue to being an American, to having a democracy, to having a free press. And sometimes it's like, I tell students all the time, there's not always a big meeting where everybody puts a suit and a tie and heels on and goes and has an ethical discussion or figures something out. What really happens are the day-to-day choices that you make in all of the stories that you tell in whatever medium you're telling them. So what we try to stress to students is that, yes, maybe you're in my fundamentals of reporting class right now, but the choices you're making are going to inform your future choices, and the choice to do this work makes a difference. You're making a difference to democracy by going out and listening to people and telling their stories. And that's that's core to the whole thing.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Will, when you talk to students, and I've had the honor of being in one of your classes and talking to students, you know, they're entering into a profession like you're both standing up for this profession because it is under attack, do you have to explain to them, yes, you know, if you're studying economics or philosophy or psychology, you know you may have real challenges in your career, but if you want to be a journalist, you kind of have to put on a metaphysical Flak Jacket, don't you?
WILL YURMAN: I mean, in some ways, I mean, I do think it's a different landscape than it was when, then, when I started, when Laurie started in journalism, okay, but I think that, you know, what I tell students is, is that there's a lot of joy in what we do, that it's a profession that brings, you, know, personal joy, but also satisfaction, because you're, I think doing something good. I think that journalism matters. But yes, I think that you need to be prepared for people attacking what you do, and the best defense against that is just doing really good journalism. Yeah, and those attacks are, you know, as we say in the letters, coming from the administration, but, but also coming from, sometimes, from the community.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Laurie, specifically around the attacks from the administration and I don't know if it can be ascribed to him directly, but certainly the President has, or at least likes to think he's, coined the term fake news. Talk a little bit about what it feels like to be in the profession, but also to be an instructor and teach the next generation that you have the most powerful person in the world using a term seemingly when he just simply disagrees with what a reporter is asking him.
LORI SHONTZ: Yeah, and this has been going on for a while. I mean, I remember after the 2016 election, teaching a class and having a slide about alternative facts with, you know, pictures of things. Well, those were alternative facts. And we spent a whole class on there being no alternative facts. And so showing these in pieces, I try never to show something that's going wrong without some showing something that's going right and giving them a path forward. It can be very easy to get into the doom and gloom of journalism, and it's certainly on the attack, and I am certainly realistic about what's happening. My job is to prepare students for this and to give them realistic expectations and also tools to use when they feel under attack, particularly women, particularly our students of color, particularly our LGBTQ students, those are the journalists that tend to come under this more day to day. And I want to back up what Will said is that there is true joy in this work. We do it for these important reasons, but we do it for day-to-day joy, and we do it for meeting people and for elevating voices and telling their stories. So, I think that balance is particularly important, that you want to have a realistic expectation, but you also don't want to scare them off, because I've had a wonderful experience in this career, and I wouldn't teach it if I didn't believe in it.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Will I'm going to you. There have been well known cases of true bravery amongst journalists, as well as the organizations that they work for, given the current climate, but there's also been, you know, kind of almost seems like some concessions made. I'm thinking of, you know, how Paramount was trying to get a merger done and sort of reigning in CNN. As a keen observer of this industry, what do you make when sorting the economic interests of an entity, seemingly, you know, stamp on or stomp on the ethics of journalism?
WILL YURMAN: Yeah. I mean, I think that's a struggle. You know, the Paramount CBS example you give, and Jeff Bezos, the changes he made at the Washington Post and at the LA Times, those are the owners. Those aren't the journalists, right? I mean, I mean, I think we need to make a distinction between the business of journalism and the choices people make about financial needs and priorities, sure, versus the journalists on the ground. And I think, you know, good journalists are everywhere. I think the Washington Post has lots of great journalists, but they also have an owner who has backtracked and seems to have made concessions to the administration. So those economic pressures are real. And I think the big issue is that all of this trickles down. You know, CBS and Paramount, lots of money, they can make choices, but if you're a small publication, your local journalism, and you're worried about being sued, you know, a lawsuit that's frivolous, could still put you out of business, and there's real life examples of those. So, I think part of what the letter tries to address, and I think a big part of the problem is exactly that. It's the chilling effect that all of these actions are taking on all journalism. You know, your local newspaper, your local radio station, your local station.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Lori, how did this letter come about? I'm curious, because I could imagine, you know, getting a whole bunch of professors together to agree on, you know, a letter. It's probably a challenge. Did someone in the department say, hey, let's do this, or kind of, was it Water Cooler discussions talk about the genesis of it all?
LORI SHONTZ: Yeah, we've been talking about this for a. Long time, and feeling like this was a moment where we had to do something, and what could we do that was going to make a difference? And one of the things we talked about was wanting to make a difference beyond our individual classrooms, the individual students who come to our drop-in hours and talk to us, that we felt like it was a moment where we needed to help a bigger conversation happen and to make some connections for people, right? So, we talked about a lot of different ways to do this, you know, and will was really instrumental in making this happen and taking this and running with it and saying, you know, these matters. It matters to write a letter, you know, it's interesting, right? Because we don't want to be the story journalists. You know, we ask the questions. We're not usually the people being asked the questions. But I don't think journalism as an industry has done a great job of explaining to the public what we do and why. And it's not just about, you know, our privilege as journalists or our role as journalists. It's about we're representatives of the community, and we're doing work that benefits everyone here. So, it's a little unusual in some ways to say, You know what, we're going to write letters to the editor, we're going to put our name on it, we're going to put it out there. But at the same time, I think this kind of work is really important because it puts us in contact with the community, and it also helps us as an entity to stand together.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Lori, I’m going to stay with you, because, and I don't want to overstate this, but obviously in the times we live in, it took some bravery to put your name on a letter. I know it's, you know, it's sent to the local papers and whatnot. But who knows? I mean, you know, your authorship can, could attract the attention, and all of a sudden who knows what happens? Was there conversation around that about just, just the idea of, yeah, I'm putting my name on this?
LORI SHONTZ: Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, we teach our students to have that conversation with people they interview right where, if you're going to interview and talk about this, these are the potential consequences for what happens if it's out there. You want people to make informed choices. We live this every day. We live as people who practice journalism. We live this as people who teach journalism. And you know, we signed it because it matters that much. And yeah, did I go home and have a short conversation with my husband about I'm going to put this name on this letter? And he was like, Yes, do it. This is the moment. So I didn't really have any second guessing about signing it. I felt really strongly about it, and I want students to see me feel really strongly about it and put my name on it.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Will, philosophically, when you talk to students do you believe that it's still a worthwhile career to pursue, given all that's going on, and probably more in terms of the feedback that you see in your teachings – and, who are the young students going into journalism today?
WILL YURMAN: Sure, I'll take those backwards. Oh yes, I have optimism about the profession and about the future of journalism. I mean, I think the need and passion for news is bigger than ever. People are hungry for information. You see it everywhere. So, it's not a demand problem, it's an economic supply problem. You know, philosophically, I just think it's so valuable. I just think journalism is so important to society. I think, you know, we talk about objectivity, but I start from a place where I think democracy is valuable to our country, and I think journalism is fundamental to democracy. And so if that's an opinion, you know, we can certainly debate that, but if you start there, I just think journalism is so crucial. And you know, that's what I try to teach my students. You know, we talked earlier. We try to teach them the joy of what we do, the opportunity to learn things and meet people and be out in the world, but also the value of what we do. And, you know, we get lots of students. Not all our students end up in journalism, but the best students have that curiosity. Some of them are idealistic and they want to change the world. Some of them are passionate about sports or entertainment, and they just want to know more and share those stories. Some love to write, some love to take pictures. There's all sorts of reasons you become a journalist, and then, you know, that evolves as you go. I mean, you know, for me, it was taking pictures as sort of my gateway drug. So, so, yeah, so I'm both encouraged and optimistic and then also worried about, like, all these headwinds, right? I mean, the current administration being, you know, one among many.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Lori, there's the famous phrase about for every action, there's an opposite and equal reaction. With the attacks coming from the administration, as well as a lot of other places. Do you feel as though there could be almost like a rebound of great journalism, or just even support for what reporters are doing?
LORI SHONTZ: I think so. Yeah, I think that. I think this generation of students wants to make a difference in a way that maybe my generation of students didn't feel so close to my generation of students when I was in college, I hadn't just been through a pandemic. I didn't have this existential climate emergency hanging over my head. As you know, I was able to make different choices. These students have lived through a lot of that, and because of that, they are motivated to make things better, and I believe that journalism makes things better, and those are the kind of students that we get, and maybe they don't know entirely how to do that. Maybe a teacher told them they're good writers. Maybe a teacher told them that they had a good visual eye, and they kind of steer them toward us, and our job is to instill that a little bit bigger and to make connections for them, right? I have a background in sports journalism, and we have a lot of students who want to do sports. I see Sports coverage, particularly local high schools, local teams. Of the issues that happen in sports as also core to a democracy. For democracy to work, you have to be connected to the people around you. Community matters, the ability to debate and to have dialog and to do that all matters. Sports makes all of that happen. So when I teach sports journalism, I am very clear about Yes, get the score right and who wins matters, and all that sort of stuff. But also look at everything that happens off the field happens on it, and you are providing a service, not just a great story by doing this, same with culture, with food, with entertainment, with art. There are so many ways that journalism makes democracy and community better that doesn't have anything specifically to do with watchdog journalism or covering City Council, which, to be clear, you also need all of that, but it's a wide landscape, and our students are at all parts of that landscape, and it's our job again, to make those connections for students and say, This is how you can make a difference.
MICHAEL DUNNE: One of the lines here on the first paragraph of your letter struck me - feel the urgency of the times. And I'm wondering, we have to act soon, or else we're going to be at a point of no return. Do you feel a little bit that way with regard to what's happening with journalism right now?
WILL YURMAN: Oh, absolutely, yeah. And I want to be clear that this letter is very specific to journalism, First Amendment speech issues. Sure, I'm not. The letter is not a debate on climate change or terror, or any of the other policies, and I don't want people to think that, you know, I only want students who feel a certain way on certain issues. Sure, I would be thrilled to have all of my students with all their perspectives pursue journalism. And what I tell my students is, that their opinion is a starting place, right? You start with maybe a view, and then you go out and investigate and report and verify and test your own beliefs, and that's good journalism, but, but, yeah, is now a crucial crisis point for journalism, I absolutely think so. And again, all the things you mentioned at the beginning, there's economic pressures, there's just lack of trust, which I think is huge. And again, a topic for another time, but, I think the administration's pressure, the language that President Trump uses is damaging journalism, and I think that journalism is crucial to a to a healthy democracy.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Lori I'm going to ask you both this last question, but I’ll start with you. What can the average person do to help protect journalism?
LORI SHONTZ: Absolutely. First of all, they can consume it. They can listen to this show, they can listen to this station. They can read local news. They can pay for it on a small level. You know, I think that's really vital. If you want this kind of information, if you want to know your community better, the people who are doing the work for that need to be paid. And the way that happens is that you show your support by doing that. I think that's really important. I think sharing work that matters too is important. I hope people share our letter. I hope it sparks conversations. I think all of those things matter. And you know, don't just consume local news. I'm sorry. Don't just consume national news, right? Like, I think sometimes the national news ecosystem is so. Big and it you kind of forget about news as close to home. One of the things that I talk about with students, when I come in the first week of class and I say, what's in the news? There's never anything from Eugene, from Springfield, from Lane County, sometimes not even from Oregon. It's all national. So I think looking local, looking close, seeing what's happening in your community, is hugely important,
right?
MICHAEL DUNNE: Will, same question to you…
WILL YURMAN: I think my answer would be similar. Is that the best way to value journalism is to both consume it and pay for itIf you can, you know, whatever you're able to pay for, it's not free to produce. It shouldn't be free to consume, you know. And I think the other thing you can do is just be open to what you're reading, but also be open to your own bias. I think anytime any of us, including me, reads an article, we start from our own point of view. Sure, and you have to just be aware of that, just like journalists need to be aware when they're creating the journalism. So, I think the more discussion we have, the more we talk, the more we're engaged, and the more we financially support journalism, the healthier it becomes.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Will Yurman, instructor at the School of Journalism and Communications and Lori Shontz Professor of Practice at the School of Journalism and Communications at the University of Oregon, really appreciate the letter and really appreciate both of you coming in and sharing your
thoughts.
WILL YURMAN: Thank you for giving us this forum.
LORI SHONTZ: Yeah, thanks. A ton.
MICHAEL DUNNE: That's the show for today. All episodes of Oregon On The Record are available as a podcast at klcc.org. Tomorrow on the show, you'll hear from a local author who's written a new book about the amazing and somewhat unknown story of local sports icon Steve Prefontaine. Last week, we asked for your comments on how tariffs are impacting local businesses. Here are a couple of responses from listeners. This comes to us from Scott in Eugene. The Trump tariffs haven't impacted our business bottom line yet, but if they are enacted, I could see new automobile sales hit a wall. All the uncertainty and mixed messages have us playing wait and see. And Christina from Cottage Grove says several of my business owner friends tell me that there is just so much confusion right now. It's very hard to plan if you don't know what tariffs might be or what the overall economy might be in a few months’ time. We always want to hear from you. Email your questions or comments to questions@klcc.org and we'll read them on the air. I'm Michael Dunne, and this has been Oregon On The Record from KLCC. Thanks for listening.
