The Middlebury Campus has been student-run since 1905. It is editorially independent. This past semester, MiddStories, the publication of Middlebury’s Office of Communications, began publishing on the same day of the week as The Middlebury Campus. That overlap matters a bit more than it may seem.
Last month, I heard someone mention in my class if the Campus was the same as MiddStories.
I quickly clarified that the Campus is entirely separate. The Campus is student-run, while MiddStories is produced by the Office of Communications and Marketing. But that moment, along with other moments like it, has been in my mind a lot now that I am about to graduate and say goodbye to the Campus. It is part of why I wanted my final article, after four years on this staff, to reflect on this distinction and why it matters.
I do want to be very clear about some things, though. MiddStories is very well-written, professionally produced and it reflects a genuine care for the community. The people behind it are good at their jobs.
But I also want to say this directly and make the distinction that MiddStories is not news in a journalistic sense. And the scheduling overlap is not a small thing, in my opinion. It causes confusion, and that is a problem.
When you type “go/news” into a Middlebury browser, it is MiddStories that appears. When you search “Middlebury College news,” MiddStories often surfaces before The Campus. That matters to me because what readers encounter first shapes how they understand what “news” on this campus is. And MiddStories, while valuable, is ultimately promotional material produced by the institution, not news.
That distinction has a weight to it that I don't think can be overstated. Like many other political science majors here, I have read Schmitter and Karl’s “What Democracy Is…and Is Not” numerous times. The text has been engrained in my thinking, in part because the defining question of my college experience has been democratic backsliding in the United States — what the warning signs are, and whether we are seeing them.
Spoiler: Without a free press, you do not have a democracy.
Student journalism is, at its core, an act of independence. It is free press. When writers on the Campus cover a story, we do so without asking the administration for permission or review. Our editorial decisions are made by students such as myself, not by the institution. We write about student grievances: the lack of transparency surrounding campus camera installations and debates over grade inflation. We write about impacts on federal politics in our community, such as international students navigating profound uncertainty with new immigration policy. Every year we launch the Zeitgeist, an annual student survey where we ask questions the institution would never ask. We can do this because we are student-run. We can do this because we are independent.
I want to clarify that the college administration has not encroached on the independence of the Campus whatsoever, and I have not experienced pressure from administrators to hold stories. Our independence has been respected, and I expect that the administration will keep this going. So, the concern I am raising is not about direct suppression, it is rather clarifying what journalism is and is not.
Unlike The Campus, MiddStories is run by the institution’s communications office, which means it will not break stories that embarrass the institution. It cannot. Their incentives do not allow it. That is not a flaw necessarily; it is a structural reality. MiddStories celebrates student and alumni achievements, profiles faculty research updates and presents the college in the best light. There is nothing wrong with that, as every college needs to communicate with its community.
Journalism exists in such a different realm than public relations, and I argue that that difference is the whole point, because, you know, when both publications land on the same day and both are labeled as “news,” that distinction becomes a little harder to see.
I am not asking MiddStories to stop publishing, or to be less good at what it does. I am instead asking for three things from different people.
First, I would ask the Middlebury Office of Communications to consider the publication-day overlap not as a matter of competitive courtesy, but as a question of clarity for readers, as there has been confusion. A different publication day would signal that MiddStories and the Campus have different relationships to this institution.
Second, I would ask this community — students, faculty, staff, administrators and alumni — to think carefully about how you consume your media on campus. Read MiddStories. Enjoy it. But also read The Campus, and read it knowing what it is: a publication that belongs to students, not to the institution, staffed by students who give so many hours of unpaid work to making sure this campus community has a paper each Thursday, and has been since 1905.
Third, I would ask Middlebury students to get involved and join the Campus. Student journalism has been the most important contribution I have made to this community by far, and certainly the most rewarding. Independent student journalism does not sustain itself, there has to be people who care enough to show up each week.
As of 2026, only 18 states have laws that protect student press freedoms. 18/50. This means in 32 states, a public school administration can legally direct, censor or shut down a student publication with no legal recourse for the students involved. Vermont is protected by the New Voices Law but protection on paper is not the same as a community that values what that protection makes possible.
There are so many ways to get involved with the Campus. You could write articles in any of our sections, contribute occasionally with op-eds, work on layout, take photos or even make cartoons! These contributions may seem small, but collectively they are what allow independent student journalism to exist at all.
As I sign off on my last story, I think back across four years, 50 bylines, and hundreds of stories edited. What journalism is is the thing that can hold any power accountable without asking its permission. What it is not is something you should ever mistake for the institution speaking for itself and it is not something that our campus can afford to lose.
With that, I hope to read your name on the byline next.
Mandy Berghela '26 (she/her) is Editor-in-Chief
Mandy has previously served as the Managing Editor, Senior Local Editor, a Local Section Editor and Staff Writer. She is majoring in Political Science with a minor in History. She currently is Co-President for the Southeast Asian Society and an intern with the Conflict Transformation Collaborative. Last summer, Mandy interned with U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and participated in the Bloomberg Journalism Diversity Program.
