The Letter to the Editor was submitted by Connor Alicaya, a student at Cal State Fullerton and a former executive producer of OC News. All opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the opinions of the Daily Titan nor OC News as a whole.
Titan TV, under Titan Communications, has been training journalism students at Cal State Fullerton to join the ranks of broadcast journalists across the country since its inception.
OC News, like the Daily Titan, serves as the capstone course for the broadcast path within the Journalism concentration of communications. Not only would the recent cuts in Instructionally Related Activity funding negatively affect the student executive producers, but also the students who have worked throughout the rest of their courses just to get to OC News.
In defense of CSUF’s distinguished journalistic education, the Academic Senate must establish proactive measures to counter the aggressive cuts of the 2026-2027 IRA awards.
Each week, the class of around 25 students work together to create two live news broadcasts. The class starts at 2 p.m., with a production meeting one hour prior. Less than three hours later, at 4:45 p.m., the first show goes live on YouTube, Spectrum and video boards across campus.
From on-camera to production crew roles, the broadcast relies entirely on the direction, creation and collaboration of the enrolled cohort, with some aid from fellow students interning with Titan TV. These students produce stories across campus and the greater Orange County area, even pitching opportunities to livestream on the scene to cover breaking news as it happens.
Some of the notable stories covered just in my time at OC News include the Tustin hangar fire, the CFA bargaining period and strike, and the publication ban at Fullerton City Hall.
Every other course in the major is meant to develop students’ skills where they work towards a grade, representing their proficiency in various niches of the industry, honing their holistic journalistic skillset.
OC News, however, is meant to give students a public platform to showcase the skills they have built throughout their college career. The class is a rare opportunity for students to “audition” for a chance to set up their career while still in college.
Their work for these broadcasts funnels into a portfolio assignment required for graduation, not only curating a personal portfolio that propels students towards commencement, but even serving as a student’s “professional reel” sought by potential employers.
Recently, Noah Cooper, senior content recruiter at TEGNA Inc., visited OC News during their break in programming. In his presentation to the class, he said he wants prospective hires to “dominate campus media.”
How would students be able to dominate campus media if it gets defunded?
Internally, student journalists at CSUF often talk about “punching up.” We feel we produce higher-quality content than would be expected from us, given our resources and the statistics of our school. But do not mistake that as a reason to further limit our resources.
At the Academic Senate meeting on April 23, a common theme among many senators opposing the resolution was that the IRA committee was simply following its procedures. However, whether the committee followed its procedures was never in debate. The debate arose over the result.
The resolution would have resulted in rejecting the current IRA budget, creating more stable awards and providing students a voting opportunity to offer “legacy programs” the same financial protection that athletics gets. Instead, it got boiled down to proposing a committee who will look at the awards and possibly propose a change, which may or may not get voted through the Academic Senate.
Cutting the budget of existing programs by up to 60% will undoubtedly cause irreparable damage to the programs that rely on this funding to exist as we know them. Although funding was high following the pandemic-impacted years, where IRA program advisors either did not apply for funds or applied for much less, programs and their advisors should have been notified sooner that the funding would change for the next academic year.
By cutting funding to OC News, the number of executive producers could dwindle as some rely on the funding to set aside time to work with the class alongside their schooling and other responsibilities. OC News could also lose access to valuable resources vital to the show’s function.
Journalism is under attack nationwide. From the Associated Press being banned from the White House press room last February, to the mass exodus of news organizations from the Pentagon and the number of journalists assaulted and detained simply for reporting at protests across the country. The evidence of an organizational distaste for the press is far too common.
As a graduating student, I do not want to see OC News fall by the wayside. I feel for the students who have worked for years to get their chance to shine in the OC News studio, only to now see it face the possibility of becoming a shell of itself.
Protect OC News. Protect collegiate journalism.