How a Former Professional Photographer Leads the Battle to Defend Student Media

Citing budgetary deficits, Indiana University ended the print version of its scholar newspaper and fired the director of scholar media, igniting nationwide debate over censorship.

CNN aired a split-screen interview with its anchor/correspondent Jake Tapper and Gary Green, government director of the Student Press Law Center. Green, primarily based in Georgia, was educated as a photojournalist and labored for twenty years as a information photographer.

The Student Press Law Center works to guard and develop the First Amendment rights of scholar journalists and supply them with training, coaching, and authorized sources to soundly and precisely cowl their communities, typically within the face of threats, intimidation, or censorship.

Celebrating its fiftieth yr, the Student Press Law Center has been led by attorneys for many of its half-century. In 2023, its board determined — for the primary time — to rent a non-lawyer as government director, enlisting Green. His profession began as a small-town information photographer in Kentucky.

Green runs the nonprofit group; he works with a staff of attorneys on the entrance traces of scholar media First Amendment disputes.

Staff legal professional Mike Hiestand has fielded greater than 20,000 hotline calls.

On October 15, the Student Press Law Center (SPLC) filed a brief in federal court docket supporting The Stanford Daily in its First Amendment lawsuit on behalf of worldwide college students. The temporary was signed by San Francisco lawyer/SPLC board member Matthew Cate. Green spoke on behalf of the group.

How Did a Photojournalist Become the Leader of a Law Center?

Green migrated from images to instructing and advocating for the rights of media practitioners.

“For much of the past decade, I have been teaching and working with students in collaboration with First Amendment organizations in Florida and Georgia to get young people more involved in covering the state and local government and understanding how to use public records in their reporting,” he says. “Joining the Student Press Law Center was a natural extension of that work.”

Green took his first images class as a senior at Hudson High School in northeast Ohio. After graduating from Ohio University’s School of Visual Communication in 1994, he started a succession of newspaper jobs, beginning in Paducah, Kentucky.

Credentials

From 2002-2014, Green labored for The Orlando Sentinel, rising to Senior Multimedia Journalist. Throughout his 20-year capturing profession, he lined a number of Super Bowls, World Series, NBA and NCAA championships, area shuttle launches, presidential elections, hurricanes and pure disasters, and the September 11, 2001, terror assaults.

In 2014, Green joined the Innovation News Center at the University of Florida. He mentored college students whereas serving because the digital director and deputy information director for WUFT, north central Florida’s public media station that gives experiential studying for scholar journalists. He earned a grasp’s diploma from the University of Florida in 2015.

For practically seven years (2014-2020), Green was on the board of the First Amendment Foundation. In 2020, he moved to Georgia to function government director of the Center for Sustainable Journalism at Kennesaw State University.

Green at present serves on advisory boards of the Florida Center for Government Accountability and the Center for Community News at the University of Vermont (working to develop news-academic partnerships with college and college-led scholar reporting applications to assist fill gaps in native information deserts).

Is Photojournalism a Stepping Stone to Running a Law Center?

Yes, says Green, as a result of photojournalists should overcome obstacles to inform tales in compelling methods.

“Leading a nonprofit legal support organization for student journalists is similar in that you are constantly having to anticipate and react to threats to press freedoms, political influence, fluctuating revenue streams, rising costs of doing business, emerging technology, and the constantly evolving journalism landscape,” Green says.

Challenges confronting scholar press are much like these going through the broader information media: lack of print promoting, political pressures, and defunding public media.

Student Media at Center Stage

Student media play a bigger position in areas of restricted information protection. Plus, school publications are breaking tales with influence:

• The Stanford Daily uncovered educational misconduct by the college’s former president, resulting in resignation.
• The University of Florida’s scholar newspaper revealed that spending underneath former President Ben Sasse tripled in his first yr, prompting an investigation.
• The Daily Northwestern printed a collection of stories on hazing and sexual assault throughout the soccer staff, which led to the firing of the top coach.
• The Yale Daily News protection of psychological well being depart insurance policies led to a federal lawsuit and coverage modifications on the college.

Several scholar journalists have been arrested lately for legally protecting protests and for his or her constitutionally protected speech. For some, the primary telephone name they made was to the Student Press Law Center. Student journalist Charlotte Hampton, who was arrested whereas protecting protests on Dartmouth’s campus in 2024, said that she was lost and didn’t know what to do till talking with the Center’s attorneys.

“I wasn’t really sleeping for the week between getting arrested and the prosecutor dropping my charges,” she stated. “SPLC was the biggest part of this outpouring of support. After I spoke to SPLC, I was able to sleep again. They brought me a lot of solace when they gave me guidance about how I could get my charges dropped and expunged from my record.”

In conditions like Hampton’s, the Student Press Law Center intervenes to supply authorized help and builds coalitions to sentence the actions and establishments that violate their First Amendment rights.

Indiana Student Daily

After Indiana University ended the print version of the Indiana Daily Student and fired the director of scholar media, billionaire alumnus/benefactor Mark Cuban posted a pointed, extensively quoted response: “Not happy. Censorship isn’t the way.”

The college is forming a process power to look at the scholar publication’s editorial independence and funding. Student Press Law Center Staff is engaged through its web site, workers legal professional Jonathan Gaston-Falk, and government director Green.

As Green wrapped up his on-air interview with Jake Tapper at CNN, Tapper expressed encouragement to Green and his scholar media constituency: “Keep up the good fight, student journalists out there. We see you.”

Gary Green: “Thanks so much. Appreciate it.”

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About the creator: Ken Klein lives in Silver Spring, Maryland; he’s retired after a profession in politics, lobbying, and media together with The Associated Press and Gannett in Florida. Klein is an alumnus of Ohio University and a member of the Dean’s Advisory Council of the Scripps College of Communication. Professionally, he has labored for Fort Myers News-Press (Gannett), The Associated Press (Tallahassee), Senator Bob Graham, and the Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA).