In his 18 November 2025 column College journalism exposes the rot of ‘grown-ups’, Will Bunch proclaims, “Fearless college kids are saving journalism. Grown-ups? Not so much.”

In his “college-students vs. grown-ups” comparison, Bunch writes, “In recent years, as mainstream journalism looks increasingly weak and flabby in the face of U.S. authoritarianism, and with college campuses on the front lines of a culture war, scribes in their teens and early 20s — burning with youthful idealism and the freedom of not much to lose — have raced into the void.”

Bunch makes a few statements that explain his swooning over college journalists:

“The late, great Kris Kristofferson told us that freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose, and maybe that simple explanation has a lot to do with the bravery of college journalists — that they are freer to question authority than folks with a mortgage and worries about paying for their own kids to attend a top school…

We should strive to make something great out of the fact that the next generation of American journalists has arrived with smarts, savvy, and a moral compass yet to be worn down by late-stage capitalism…

Most of today’s college journalism majors would never trade emails with the likes of Jeffrey Epstein — except to take him down.”

To be fair to Will Bunch, this blogger acknowledges the good that college journalists have done and are still doing.

However, it appears to this blogger that Bunch is overlooking a bit of reality about the Human condition.

College journalists may not have eaten the capitalist forbidden fruit yet, but they also live in a college bubble, one that shields them from the difficulties and temptations that grown-up journalists have already endured.

Bunch criticizes grown-up journalists without acknowledging that the latter were once college journalists “burning with youthful idealism and the freedom of not much to lose”.

Bunch fails to acknowledge that college journalists succeed when the Law of Supply and Demand allows them to succeed. College journalists supply what is demanded within the college bubble. Grown-up journalists supply what is demanded outside the college bubble.

Will Bunch himself succeeds because he supplies something that his employer demands, and his employer succeeds by supplying what is demanded by people who favor The Philadelphia Enquirer.

The Philadelphia Enquirer itself is unusual in that it operates “as a public-benefit corporation, under the non-profit ownership” of the Lenfest Institute for Journalism.

If The Philadelphia Enquirer were the rule of journalism instead of an exception, then college journalists could easily carry their idealism into the grown-up world when they leave college. Yet, The Philadelphia Enquirer is, to the best of this blogger’s knowledge, in a minority of publications.

College journalists may apply for grown-up jobs with publications that share their ideology, but the number of such jobs available where college journalists want to live is smaller than the number of college journalists. The latter will have to adjust their demands to match what is supplied if they want to have careers in journalism.

To summarize, today’s college journalists aren’t wrong, but they are still as fallible as today’s grown-up journalists. The difference between the former and the latter is the kind of challenges and temptations that they confront.

When the former confront what the latter are confronting, the former may become just like the latter.

So, are fearless college kids saving journalism? The answer to that question depends on how one defines journalism.

Unless they are employed by non-profit organizations, the primary job of journalists is to enable their employers to earn a profit from participation in the journalism industry.

When Neal Boortz hosted his own radio talk-show, he often told his audience that his primary job was to keep his audience hooked long enough for the audience to listen to the advertisements that accompanied the talk-show.

Unless journalists are independently wealthy, they will do whatever is necessary to receive paychecks.

Today’s college journalists might get into the grow-up world and then decide that a career in journalism isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.