On Sept. 10, 2026, the day after he was reported to police for sending an email critical of university administration, Dylan Hembrough, editor-in-chief of The Alestle student newspaper at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE), stood in front of his newsroom and told the staff that he would be a “shock absorber” for them.
“I know that there is a lot happening right now, so if any of you need to push some of that burden off yourselves and onto me, please do,” he recounted the moment for Editor & Publisher. “I don’t want this to take over your lives,” he told the staff — primarily freshmen and sophomores.
The police investigation into Hembrough — which was ultimately closed without any charges — came in the midst of an intense conflict between the newspaper and school administrators. But the situation at SIUE isn’t an anomaly. In the past two years, there have been examples in at least six states where student presses have been impeded, undermined or defunded.
Marie McMullan, program manager and counsel for the Student Press Freedom Initiative at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) described the escalation at SIUE — particularly the police involvement — as “baffling” and “unprecedented.” But she said she has seen an increase in hostility across the country in recent years between student-led newsrooms and college or university administrations.
“I have seen investigations into student journalists before. Student journalists are the watchdogs on campus, and sometimes, that can put them under a microscope,” she said. “What I have not seen is this level of escalation.”
Tammy Merrett, who has been The Alestle’s program director since 2008, said conflicts between the student newspaper and university administrators have a history spanning at least 14 years and two chancellors. In recent months, the conflict escalated to what she described as a university “smear campaign” against The Alestle.
Independence with entanglements
The Alestle traces its roots to 1957 and adopted its current name in 1960. “ALESTLE” is an acronym for Alton, East St. Louis and Edwardsville. Though a student-run news brand with editorial independence, The Alestle isn’t entirely independent of the university. It is funded through student fees, advertising, sponsorships and other non-fee revenues. Southern Illinois University’s Board of Trustees is the legal publisher.
Merrett said that tensions between The Alestle and university administrators have been broiling for years. She reflected on 2012, asserting a previous chancellor retaliated against the paper for unfavorable reporting, leading a charge to cut funding and control content. In 2020, she said, he spearheaded a campaign to evict The Alestle from its offices and relegate the newsroom to a space that was about one-third the size it needed.
Despite the conflicts, the newspaper has consistently won regional and national awards. The Associated Collegiate Press named The Alestle a finalist for its prestigious Pacemaker Award this past August. The student press has received awards from the College Media Association, the Society of Professional Journalists, and the Illinois College Press Association.
Hembrough, a pharmacy student, began working at the newspaper in 2022. Though he initially had no intention of rising through the newsroom ranks to become editor, he became passionate about the journalism, inspired by its impact. He was named editor-in-chief in 2023.
The next year, Hembrough drew the administration’s attention when he wrote a story about SIUE’s media policies for university housing employees. The following year, he and his colleague Brandi Spann produced a series about SIUE diverting millions of dollars in unused salary funds to cover a deficit, rather than allowing the impacted departments to reallocate the unused funds. It meant the departments were “struggling,” Hembrough explained. Some were even “on the chopping block.”
“We were trying to get answers for people,” he said. The newsroom resorted to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to obtain the insight they were seeking.
“In the couple months leading up to the publication of the ‘salary-sweep story,’ it was getting increasingly more difficult to get answers from the administration,” Hembrough said. “Not that it was super easy before, but it was getting harder up to the point where a couple weeks before the story went live, Director of Communications Nicole Franklin… called my personal phone number and told me that the administration was done answering questions.”
The university claimed The Alestle’s reporting was inaccurate, and when reporters asked for evidence to back up that claim, the reporters found they’d actually underreported the amount in question. They had also mistakenly conflated the terms “deficit” and “debt,” so they issued a correction and ran an updated story with the new figure.
“I don’t think a lot of people would have known that if we didn’t cover it,” Hembrough said.
Merrett said The Alestle faced funding cuts, as well — about 12% of its budget. And the conflict between the paper and the administration reignited in February 2026. The student newsroom published reporting on a local union, which alleged unfair labor practices at SIUE.
In response, the chancellor called the newspaper’s reporting “predictably poor, inaccurate and incomplete.”
By July, Franklin began inserting herself into some interviews between student reporters and university employees. According to Hembrough and Merrett, Franklin said her presence during these conversations was “non-negotiable.”
Hembrough called FIRE and the Student Press Law Center (SPLC).
When The Alestle published reporting on the increasingly contentious relationship, SIUE’s administration demanded a retraction, alleging inaccuracies. The paper refused.
“The next Monday, July 27, I woke up to several notifications on my phone telling me to check my email,” Hembrough said. “And I saw that [Executive Director of University Communications and Marketing Paula Bridges] had sent an open letter to the university, to all 14,000 students, plus faculty and staff, basically calling us liars,” he said.
The Alestle responded with an editorial, breaking down the claims and refuting them.
On Sept. 3, a reporter told Hembrough that Franklin was again attempting to sit in on one of her interviews. Hembrough advised the reporter on how to craft a response, but later that day, he said that if she was uncomfortable, he would send it himself. He did, emailing the source and cc’ing Franklin.
Six days later, he was sitting in class when he received an email from an SIUE police officer, saying that the University Marketing and Communications department had lodged a harassment complaint against him.
E&P reached out to SIUE Director of Communications Nicole Franklin to better understand her — and the university’s — perspective. Franklin provided several documents, including the open letter authored by Bridges. In a separate statement provided, the university argued (in part): “This has never been about free speech or freedom of the press. SIUE has a long history of sponsoring The Alestle and training student journalists, and that commitment has not wavered. The real issue is the lack of journalistic principles of objectivity, truthfulness and accuracy. The Alestle has repeatedly published information that is inaccurate and, despite requests for corrections, has been slow or unwilling to make them. … Our position is straightforward: the University has a legitimate interest in ensuring that information it provides to the public is objective, truthful, accurate, and that factual errors concerning the University are identified and, where appropriate, corrected. That interest does not conflict with our commitment to free speech and free press.
“Going forward, Marketing and Communications will continue to work directly with The Alestle’s advisor, request corrections when factual errors have occurred, and issue its own statements when necessary to provide the University’s position or correct the public record when requested corrections are not made.”
The editorial board at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch weighed in on the conflict, publishing an editorial on Sept. 18 which, in part, read: “The school’s policy of overseeing interviews was outrageous enough itself even before Franklin got the police involved.”
Hembrough disclosed to E&P that he copes with anxiety. “I had to take a break from class to process this,” he said.
The harassment allegation was seemingly based on one line from his Sept. 3 email, which read, “Marketing and communications’ insistence on interfering with our newsgathering process is dangerous and detrimental to both press freedom and freedom of speech.”
He recalled feeling relieved when no charges were brought — almost amused by the absurdity that those words could be considered criminal.
Merrett and Hembrough met with police the following week, in a meeting Merrett described as “pleasant.” The officer reassured them that the allegations did not reach the threshold of harassment and closed the case.
“Something that would have absolutely chilled me as a student journalist is sitting with a campus police officer,” said FIRE’s McMullan.
She said a risk in conflicts between student newspapers and administrators is “self-censorship,” when reporters choose not to publish facts that may result in conflicts or retaliation. “That’s what we mean by ‘the chilling of facts.’ I’m really worried about what doesn’t get reported because students are scared.”
Hembrough said members of the staff did feel intimidated; however, it also “galvanized” the team. He saw his own role as one of critical leadership: “I’m in the position to fight against it, and I know that I would regret not fighting in the future if that was the course I took,” he concluded.
At least one elected official — State Rep. Katie Stuart (D-Edwardsville) — was paying attention to what was happening on the SIUE campus. She issued a statement that read, in part, “Student journalists’ work is crucial when analyzing a university’s function or understanding the youth’s perspective of a current event. Everyone in the United States is covered by the First Amendment, offering us the freedoms of speech and press. In Illinois, we have additional protections specifically for our student journalists. The College Campus Press Act states that campus media is not subject to prior review by public officials of those institutions. … I stand with the students and staff behind The Alestle in their commitment to free press and free speech, and refusing to be silenced.”
Alyssa Choiniere is a freelance journalist based in southwestern Pennsylvania. She is writing a nonfiction book for Rutgers University Press, “Be Home Before the Streetlights Come On: The Political Hijacking of Child-Trafficking Terror.”
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