A February 2026 article published by the Student Press Law Center this year described U.S student news outlets to be “cash starved and censored.”
But despite the changes and challenges student newspapers are facing at the local and national level, current and former student journalists say they continue to see the value of their beloved college newspapers.
Former Daily Lobo Editor-in-Chief Lily Alexander, who is now State Accountability Reporter with the Santa Fe New Mexican, said that in places like New Mexico especially, where there are “a lot of news deserts,” student newspapers can be the only source of news about what is impacting a campus community.
During her tenure, Alexander, along with former Daily Lobo Managing Editor Lauren Lifke, broke news of the University of New Mexico violating the Clery Act — a federal higher education crime transparency law.
In a statement to the Daily Lobo, SPLC Assistant Director Josh Moore wrote that every day, they receive calls to their Legal Hotline about issues relating to “tightening college budgets, changing funding models and threats to press freedom.”
“Student journalists, including those at the Daily Lobo, play a more essential role than ever, covering their communities and holding the powerful to account as other local news outlets decline and disappear,” Moore wrote. “Who else so closely covers the UNM administration and Board of Regents, or the issues affecting students every day?”
Over the course of 20 years, the Daily Lobo’s overall annual budget — made up of student fees and advertising revenue — has decreased by over 50%, with the biggest decline being in advertising revenue, despite an increase in student fees.
The Daily Lobo previously printed five days a week before printing twice a week beginning in 2015, then weekly after campus shutdowns due to COVID-19 in 2020.
The Daily Lobo’s page count depends directly on the number of ads sold the week prior. Since there has been a reduction in ad sales, the paper has seen a decrease in pages since 2024.
A 2024 study of 49 nationwide nonprofit student newsrooms found that student newspaper advertising — once the dominant revenue source of student newspapers — dropped from 91% of total revenue in 2006-2007 to 52% of total revenue in 2022-2023.
“I hope that student journalists still see the value in their work, no matter how few pages are in the paper or however few ads are being sold. It does not take away in any way from the work that they’re doing,” Alexander told the Daily Lobo.
Elizabeth Anne Andrews, current Editor-in-Chief of the NMSU Roundup, said she believes the Roundup contributes to the Las Cruces local news landscape in a “pretty big way,” often covering campus events and issues that outlets like Las Cruces Sun News or the Las Cruces Bulletin “don’t have the capacity to cover,” such as NMSU’s pro-Palestine protests.
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“I don’t mean this to have any disrespect towards the local news organizations that are doing such amazing work in Las Cruces and Albuquerque and throughout the state, but rather, I see us more as partners than competitors, and I think that we could do collaboration, as the Roundup has done with organizations in Las Cruces,” Andrews said.
The Roundup — which has operated at NMSU since 1907 — became truly independent in 2013, after separating from the student government, and as of 2025, delivers a print edition twice per semester, according to their website. The Roundup will be launching a digital newsletter later this year, according to Andrews.
“Right now, local news organizations are struggling throughout the country and in New Mexico as well for a variety of reasons,” Andrews said. “We can work together towards the common goal of just making sure that our community is informed about the issues that are affecting them.”
Local news outlets are struggling with advertising revenue as tech companies like Google and Meta earn billions of dollars in advertising revenue while the news industry loses out, according to NPR.
Former Daily Lobo Editor-in-Chief Chris Quintana, who is now an investigative reporter with USA Today, worked for the paper when it published five days a week, including during the Occupy Wall Street protests taking place at Yale Park — just across from the newsroom on campus.
“We didn’t have the same kind of resources as the (Albuquerque) Journal or the local TV stations or anything like that, but we knew what was going on on our campus, and often we would try to take ownership of stories that we felt were in our backyard,” Quintana said.
Quintana said local news outlets would often follow student coverage on campus-related issues, and he often does the same in his higher education reporting for USA Today.
“There was a student death on campus while I was editor there at the Lobo, and so we were among the first to report on that,” Quintana said. “It happens a lot where I’ve seen higher ed news bubbling up from student journalists who broke stories first.”
Despite the paper transitioning to a weekly paper and having fewer pages, Quintana said he thinks it still “produces a lot of talent.”
“(The Daily Lobo) is a very special place to me and I just hope that it continues to exist in whatever form for as long as possible,” Quintana said.
Moore wrote that student media’s value “goes far beyond financial cost,” but that university funding puts student news outlets at an “even greater risk of retaliation and censorship when they pursue a story that officials don’t like,” which is why student media outlets look for diverse funding sources and have institutional safeguards in place to protect their independence.
“Robust, independent student media are an investment in community, student voice and a free press,” Moore wrote. “That’s worth fighting for.”
Lexis Lovato contributed reporting to this article.
Paloma Chapa is the news editor for the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at news@dailylobo.com or on X @paloma_chapa88
Paloma Chapa is the news and multimedia editor for the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at multimedia@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @paloma_chapa88
