{"id":13081,"date":"2025-10-20T23:02:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T23:02:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/13081\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T23:02:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T23:02:07","slug":"the-crows-nest-stands-by-free-speech-the-crows-nest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/13081\/","title":{"rendered":"The Crow\u2019s Nest stands by free speech\u00a0 \u2013 The Crow’s Nest"},"content":{"rendered":"

Photo by Aubrey Carr | The Crow\u2019s Nest<\/p>\n

By The Crow\u2019s Nest Staff<\/p>\n

Freedom of the press is part of the First Amendment. It allows journalists to report the news without government censorship.<\/p>\n

Many elected officials on the state and federal levels may not remember this aspect of the First Amendment, so we\u2019re here to remind them.<\/p>\n

The Crow\u2019s Nest began its service to the St. Petersburg campus in 1969, as the Bay Campus Bulletin. Since then, we have remained committed to upholding journalistic integrity and ensuring that students have the resources to stay knowledgeable about their campus and their city.<\/p>\n

Student voices have always been at the core of every article. That will remain the case going forward.<\/p>\n

In light of recent attacks on the First Amendment rights of American citizens and newspapers, The Crow\u2019s Nest is affirming its position as an independent, student-led newspaper.<\/p>\n

Censorship has made its way into the Tampa Bay area within the last year, especially in recent months.<\/p>\n

Educational material like books and textbooks have been banned, and sociology as an academic discipline has been undermined in Gov. Ron Desantis\u2019 war against diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts.<\/p>\n

In early September, St. Petersburg street murals that promote creativity and equality, such as the Woodson African American Museum\u2019s \u201cBlack History Matters\u201d mural, Grand Central\u2019s \u201cProgressive Pride\u201d mural and USF St. Petersburg\u2019s \u201cFluid Structures\u201d were painted over. The erasure of street murals was a directive by the Florida Department of Transportation that has impacted cities all over Florida and was enforced with the threat of state funding losses. The Crow\u2019s Nest staff witnessed the covering of \u201cFluid Structures\u201d and were disheartened at the attempt to erase USF St. Petersburg\u2019s creative voice.<\/p>\n

Tampa Pride recently canceled its 2026 events due to \u201cchallenges with corporate sponsorships, reductions in county, state and federal grant funding, and the discontinuation of DEI programs under Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis,\u201d the organization said.<\/p>\n

Government censorship has also made its way into prominent media via the Pentagon\u2019s new press access policy, which requires any reporting pertaining to the military be approved by the Pentagon and the White House, according to a recent statement released by NPR.<\/p>\n

Like many major news outlets, NPR refused to sign the policy and \u201c[urged] the Pentagon and the Administration to uphold freedom of the press and the American people\u2019s right to know what is done in their name.\u201d<\/p>\n

Less overt means of censoring the media have been exemplified by The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (PBS) being defunded, the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel for comments he made on his show, which airs on ABC, and the firing of the student advisor of the Indiana Daily Student after he pushed back against Indiana University\u2019s attempts to censor the independent, student run newspaper.<\/p>\n

Students are concerned. We understand. We share those concerns.<\/p>\n

The most effective way to combat censorship is through education. There are many resources available to help students in these troubling times.<\/p>\n

The Crow\u2019s Nest is one of those resources. We intend to keep students updated on the issues that impact them and platform their voices\u2014whether on or off record\u2014above all. And through an extensive pitching, reporting and editing process, each of our student journalists are dedicated to producing stories that educate and inform our peers.<\/p>\n

We stand by USF students and intend to keep using our First Amendment rights so that we can bring students together and ward off government efforts to silence us<\/p>\n


\n\t\t\t\t Post Views: 22 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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Written by: Crow’s Nest Staff<\/a> on October 20, 2025.
Last revised by: Alisha Durosier<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo by Aubrey Carr | The Crow\u2019s Nest By The Crow\u2019s Nest Staff Freedom of the press is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13082,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-13081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}