What does it mean for a student newspaper to be ”independent”? And how well does The Collegian live up to that promise? Over the past two years of reading the paper, I’ve noticed a pattern in the Collegians ' coverage, and what I found is concerning. From silencing progressive voices to uncritically platforming conservative speakers, the paper often runs cover for the school and institutional powers rather than challenging them. This series will dissect The Collegian's reporting practices and expose how they fall short of journalistic independence.
I write this not as an outsider, but as a student deeply involved in campus organizing, as someone who's watched The Collegian minimize the work of my peers and reshape student narratives to fit their narrow lens. I’m not claiming neutrality, no writer truly can. But unlike the collegian, I won’t pretend to be above biases.
This is Part 1 of a three-part series unpacking how The Collegian fails to provide the student with adequate coverage. In this piece, I expose the surface-level bias in the coverage and how certain voices are elevated while others are sidelined. Part 2 dives deeper, drawing on my own experiences as an opinion writer to show how dissent is suppressed. Finally, in Part 3, I'll explain why this happens, how a media outlet funded and overseen by those in power cannot speak freely against them.
Selective Coverage of Campus Politics
To understand how The Collegian’s claims of independence and neutrality fall flat, we must first examine its editorial choices. What voices do they choose to amplify versus whom they obscure, and whose perspectives do they routinely sideline?
Media bias manifests not only in how stories are written but in which stories are deemed worthy of coverage at all. A pattern has emerged over the past two years: conservative voices are granted uncritical platforms, while progressive ones are minimized or omitted entirely. This selective coverage does more than skew representation, it actively shapes campus discourse. The following examples reveal how The Collegian’s reporting aligns with conservative interests, sacrificing its potential to serve as a watchdog for student concerns.
Take the recent coverage of Seth Gruber, a pro-life speaker hosted by Young Americans for Freedom (YAF). The Collegian’s February 13 article uncritically quoted YAF members and Seth Gruber. More than 55% of the article was direct quotations with no editorial context.
Of the little context provided, one example was the claim that students had “erased or drew over” YAF’s chalk messages about the event. However, The Collegian did not consult University admin, which had already investigated and responded to the incident prior to publication. Without this context, readers would think YAF members are facing persecution from a hostile campus community while the university turns a blind eye. This fuels the same false narrative YAF used to claim that DEI programs are just a means to discriminate against them.
Meanwhile, the same day, students from the YDSA distributed 72 free Plan B pills—an act of grassroots healthcare advocacy —without a single mention. This is especially worrying considering it was one of the most shared actions on social media that the YDSA has ever taken. So in reality, YAF complains about persecution while being frequently, prominently, and uncritically platformed in the university press while the YDSA has not been mentioned in a single article in the last year.
More recently, The Collegian published an article titled “We’re Not the Enemy: A Recount of Fake Patties Day”, framing Fakes through the perspectives of Mayor Scott Hajek and the Riley County Police Department (RCPD). The piece uncritically amplified the mayor’s praise for RCPD’s “Break Up With Fake Patties Day” campaign, which he claimed was merely about discouraging “people entering Manhattan thinking they have no responsibility.” This narrative ignores last year’s heavy-handed policing, where RCPD officers broke up nearly every house party and relentlessly issued citations. Worse still, they haphazardly include student statements that appear to represent the student voice while bracketing them with comments by authorities. One of the students remarked that people “felt safer”, but only because they fear RCPD’s presence in Aggieville on Fakes, an admission the article leaves unexamined. What The Collegian also failed to mention is that the day’s most meaningful safety effort didn’t come from the city or police, but from students. YDSA, in collaboration with TKFF, distributed 170 boxes of Narcan and 200+ fentanyl test strips, offering real, life-saving public health support that the article completely ignored.
Even when The Collegian tries to include marginalized perspectives, its adherence to a superficial “balance” undermines progress. Take its April 18, 2024 coverage of Chloe Cole, a detransitioner turned right-wing activist who lobbies state governments to ban gender-affirming care for minors—policies condemned by most major medical authorities like the American Medical Association. While the article commendably highlighted SAGA’s advocacy for transgender rights, it uncritically platformed both Cole’s discredited claims about transgender healthcare and YAF president Thomas Adcock’s defense of the group’s vandalism of the transgender flag—a deliberate act of hate speech framed as mere ideological disagreement. Adcock stated, “Us crossing out the transgender flag is not us hating trans people or saying they don’t need to exist, that is us saying we do not agree with this ideology.” The article even platformed his claims about transgender people being influenced by they/them demons.
By equating transgender identity with a political “ideology,” Adcock weaponizes free speech to delegitimize human dignity, a tactic common among groups seeking to erode civil rights under the guise of debate. The Collegian’s inclusion of this rhetoric, without contextualizing it as hate speech or addressing its harm, exposes the paradox of tolerance: Neutrality toward intolerance normalizes violence, not dialogue. This is not a theoretical concern. Cole’s activism has directly contributed to legislation denying life-saving healthcare to transgender youth. And, YAF’s vandalism of the transgender pride flag mirrors efforts by the right to encourage LGBTQ+ people to go back in the closet and fear our campus. As philosopher Karl Popper warned, a tolerant society cannot afford to tolerate those who would destroy tolerance itself. By amplifying these voices under the pretense of “fairness,” they conflate dissent with oppression and abandon their duty to protect vulnerable communities.
Legitimizing Power From Elections to Empire
The paper’s bias is not limited to silencing campus organizers, however. Their reporting on politics, policy, and global conflicts reveals a recurring preference for narratives that reinforce institutional authority. This editorial pattern goes beyond mere imbalance; it reflects a worldview where power is rarely criticized, and when it is, dissent is dismissed as unnecessarily disruptive. Their election coverage erases progressive victories, and their international policy journalism justifies horrific state violence as mere “retaliation.”
During their 2024 election coverage, “Kansas Remains Red” reporters exclusively attended Republican watch parties, quoted GOP victors like Angel Roeser, and framed the election as a sweeping conservative win. But, they failed to mention Sydney Carlin’s victory in Riley County’s District 66. Even more egregious, it ignored Riley County’s shift towards the democratic party in the presidential election, where 49.6% of voters supported Kamala Harris. This selective omission distorts reality: A county where Harris earned nearly half the vote and outperformed Trump by 1.8% cannot credibly be painted as a conservative stronghold.
Even their ostensibly neutral reporting leans into distortion. A January 29 article highlighted Trump’s record-high number of executive orders, focusing narrowly on quantity while ignoring the ensuing consequences. The piece omitted how these orders target student rights, campus funding, and civil liberties issues which deeply affect the K-State community. By reducing consequential policy to a superficial tally, The Collegian framed political aggression as routine governance.
This shallow reporting isn’t limited to right-wing events. Look at The Collegian’s coverage of YDSA’s May Day protest for K-State divestment from Israel. The article framed the violence as beginning with “Hamas fighters” attacking Israel, erasing decades of Israeli occupation, Zionist settler colonialism displacing Palestinians, and the 1948 Nakba—where armed Zionist militias killed over 15,000 Palestinians and displaced 700,000. By reducing the conflict to just Oct. 7th, they attempt to justify Israel's actions as “retaliation” and erase Palestinians’ actions as an act of liberation. This is whitewashing history and endorses state violence, which punishes a whole persecuted ethnic group for the actions of very few of its members.
The pattern of skewed sourcing is also evident in The Collegian’s November 9, 2023 article, which centered Michael Flynn—a K-State political science professor whose work, like his book Beyond the Wire, takes a liberal approach to U.S. military expansionism—as its primary voice on the Israel-Gaza conflict. Flynn, whose expertise lies in U.S. militarism, not Middle Eastern politics, dominated the piece with fearmongering claims about the U.S. becoming a “target for terrorist attacks by Hamas.” Only one dissenting student, Noah, briefly denounced Israel’s actions as genocide. Meanwhile, scholars directly relevant to the region, such as Dr. Sabri Ciftci (director of K-State’s Middle Eastern Studies program) and Dr. Neda Oweidat (a historian of liberalism in the Muslim world), were excluded entirely. This omission was intentional. By platforming Flynn’s hawkish rhetoric over experts who could contextualize occupation or apartheid, The Collegian manufactured a narrative of existential threat, legitimizing militarism instead of fostering informed debate.
Buried Beneath Fluff and Bias
The Collegian’s slant isn't confined to politics or global conflicts. The same editorial choices that erase Palestinian liberation or ignore local progressive organizing also dictate what’s deemed ‘newsworthy’—and what’s silenced—in our campus community. While the paper occasionally produces consequential journalism, like their reporting on the loss of $50 million in federal funding for a K-State lab following an executive order, it is often drowned out by a flood of K-State sports, arts fluff pieces, and conservative commentary. The imbalance is stark: five pages per issue are devoted to sports, arts, and culture, while hard news is relegated to just two.
The imbalance raises questions: Why does investigative reporting—like the University Daily Kansan’s (UDK) exposé on mold-infested dorms at KU—seem absent from The Collegian’s priorities? Where is the sustained coverage of issues affecting students, such as a former professor’s disability discrimination lawsuit last semester, the cuts to ATA bus routes limiting campus accessibility, or the DOE-mandated layoffs at NBAF and USDA that impacted Manhattan families?
The UDK, though imperfect, consistently engages with issues that intersect with student life and public accountability, such as Governor Kelly’s veto of anti-trans legislation or collaborations between the KBI and ICE—stories that The Collegian often sidesteps. Meanwhile, the growth of the Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA) from a marginal group to the largest political organization on campus has unfolded without meaningful acknowledgment from the paper. Not to mention our work in Student Government for the Keep ICE Off Campus campaign. Most matters that interest students are ignored for filler pieces and platforms for conservative rhetoric. If The Collegian truly served all students, wouldn’t it amplify such shifts in campus activism rather than reduce news coverage to a footnote?
A Call to Build a Truly Independent Paper
This isn’t about demanding “both sides” coverage, it’s about dismantling a system that prioritizes power over truth. A student newspaper should be a platform by and for students, free from the influence of advertisers, alumni boards, or administrative gatekeepers. The Collegian’s current model, funded by student government and overseen by a board with corporate interests, is structurally incapable of independence. How can it hold the university accountable when The Collegian relies on its funding? How can it amplify marginalized voices when its leadership answers to donors, not the student body?
The path forward is clear: Kansas State needs a truly independent paper. Look to KU’s University Daily Kansan (UDK), which investigates mold in dorms, challenges state policies, and centers student-led movements. Their work proves that campus media can be both critical and community-driven. At K-State, this means redistributing power—divorcing funding from student government, democratizing editorial boards, and centering writers and organizers who reflect the campus’s diversity.
That’s why the YDSA at Kansas State is proud to announce our partnership with The Weekly Rose, a new socialist student publication. Unlike The Collegian, The Weekly Rose will not feign neutrality. We are openly biased—biased toward workers, students, and the oppressed. Our print edition will fill the void left by institutional media, prioritizing stories that The Collegian ignores: campus labor struggles to Palestinian solidarity, harm reduction to critiques of austerity.
Building this future starts with us. Let’s demand transparency in funding, equity in staffing, and courage in reporting. Let’s create a paper that doesn’t just claim independence—it embodies it.
If you would like to write for The Weekly Rose, then DM the YDSA on Instagram @kstateydsa. Give us a follow and join our Discord if you want to become a part of our organizing efforts.
With love and solidarity,
Nick Mc-Kee Rist
KSU YDSA Co-Chair
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