Editorial: Casper College student journalists recently faced new challenges when trying to conduct interviews on campus, particularly with certain administrative departments. The issue made it all the way to the college’s executive council last month. 

This semester, multiple Chinook writers found that to speak with members of the Casper College Financial Aid Department, they first needed to submit a list of the questions they planned to ask in the interview. The department also requested the opportunity to read the final article for accuracy and to submit edits before official publication in the Chinook, a practice that has never been part of the Chinook’s reporting process. The Chinook has been in publication on campus since 1945. 

Student journalist Kaydance Parke encountered this requirement when she inquired about the student loan forgiveness program.

I ran into the same restriction while reporting on the Golden Age Scholarship, a scholarship that benefits older students at CC. Financial Aid asked me to conduct the interviews through email, provide the questions beforehand, and allow them to edit the final draft before publication.  

Lisa Icenogle, CC’s public relations editor and news coordinator, said, “Yeah, we could ask for questions ahead of time, and some people do want to see the story before it gets published because they want to know what’s going on.”  

Icenogle said financial aid reached out to her for advice.

She said, “Somebody [financial aid] had called me and said they were concerned about what kind of information and I said, ‘You can always ask for questions in advance.” 

CC’s Director of Public Relations, Christopher Lorenzen noted that he prefers only qualified individuals speak on behalf of the college to avoid placing interviewees in difficult situations. Lorenzen also wondered that because the Chinook is published on CC’s website and accessible to anyone in the community, if the Chinook is considered “external media.” If so, the Chinook would be subject to a policy requiring all media inquiries to go through the public relations department.  

Executive Council unanimously agreed the Chinook is not an external media source — a win for the student news room. However, that decision highlighted an inconsistency: professional media outlets aren’t held to the same pre-screening standards. 

Dan Cepeda, a features editor and reporter for Oil City News, shared his recent experience writing about CC.   

“I do have to go through PR, and they will usually facilitate the interview as well as sit in during the process. However, they don’t ask for prepared questions in advance and have never asked to approve articles, which is something that we’d never agree to in the first place,” Cepeda said in an email.  

Lorenzen explained why Chinook writers faced more restrictions than Cepeda, who wrote a story in August about the closing of one of CC’s student housing options.  

Lorenzen said that Wheeler Terrace, the apartment building, was pretty straightforward compared to financial aid.  

“[It’s] something we’ve been working on for a long time,” Lorenzen said. “It was just lots of content and fairly easy to do.”  

In the Chinook’s case, PR suggested asking for questions in advance and for final article approval post-interview to make the interviewee in financial aid feel more comfortable. Lorenzen said there is not a written policy for such a process – it’s merely a suggestion. 

Later, he added, “I mean, you really can’t edit a reporter’s story.”  

Now that executive council concluded the Chinook is part of the campus community and not an outside media source, student reporters hope that means fewer restrictions when interviewing administrators moving forward.  

CC’s own “Students’ First” document published in 2024 states that a “students first” culture puts “students above process.” A direct quote from the document reads, “At Casper College, education is not merely a transaction; it’s an ongoing, engaging, and passionate dialogue between educators, staff, students, and their families.” It also encourages staff to take risks and work through discomfort to benefit innovative thinking and support others.” 

By limiting interviews or imposing editorial oversight, departments risk violating these very principles while undercutting experiential learning opportunities for journalism students. 

CC students are not the only ones facing these roadblocks. It is happening across the nation. Brian Rosenzweig, a Herald Times reporter, wrote a story published on Oct. 23 about a first amendment issue at Indiana University where administrators reportedly interfered with student media operations. 

A lawyer for IU’s student paper cited Husain v. Springer (2007), which forbids administrative interference with student media speech at public universities — a precedent relevant to CC’s situation. 

While CC student reporters have not encountered outright censorship like IU students, they hit barriers much earlier in the process with departments avoiding interviews. Chinook student reporters struggled to learn and gain applicable experience of the reporting process because they were restricted before the writing process even began.  

Since Casper College’s Executive Council clarified the Chinook’s standing, student reporters hope campus leaders will recommit to the college’s “Students’ First” philosophy, putting education, experience, and free expression ahead of institutional discomfort.