Student journalism is an applied learning experience to rival any other internship or job on campus. We spend our days interviewing community members and typing for hours to string together words that inform our readers.

With newsrooms dwindling in size from layoffs due to budget cuts, student journalists are now more important than ever. They fill in the gaps for what bigger newspapers can’t do, and then some. They are also sometimes the only newspaper in town and the only source for information as smaller newspapers struggle to survive.

Sometimes, what we report on often changes laws. After a contentious battle between The Sunflower and the administration last year, our coverage of the events that unfolded brought about a new law requiring all student fees meetings to be open to the public.

Unfortunately, like our professional counterparts, student media is seeing a decline in support when it comes to advertising dollars. After the recession, student newspapers have seen a steady decline in advertising dollars and have had to make cuts, such as going down from a daily newspaper to weekly or twice-weekly printing.

But just like our counterparts, our mission is to inform the community, because that’s what journalists do.

In recognition of Student Press Freedom Day, I want to remind our readers that we don’t report on the “bad things” about our school because we hate it. We do it because we love where we are and know others do too, and we want to better our university by making officials think about their actions that affect us, the students.