University of Central Oklahoma halts student paper’s print publication

The Vista, a student newspaper at the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond, was formally forced to halt print publication on Aug. 14, 2025, after school administrators criticized its news coverage.

This fall marks the first semester since the paper’s founding in 1903 that the publication won’t be printed, said Joe Hight, the university’s journalism ethics chair.

An early 2025 cost-cutting initiative at the public university, third-largest in the state, prompted discussions about ceasing weekly print publication in favor of digital-only distribution, according to an account in The Independent View, a newly launched student publication.

Hight, interim chair of the school’s Student Media Advisory Board, said the board instead opted in a May vote to reduce the print frequency to biweekly and use money from a separate endowment fund to support additional publications.

But Elizabeth Maier, dean of the university’s College of Liberal Arts, determined to end print operations entirely, mandating the publication operate as a digital-only operation, the View reported. The advisory board ultimately approved the plan in August.

Vista Editor-in-Chief Kenna Attaway wrote in an editorial that, with the budget cuts, The Vista was forced to decide between stopping print publication or reducing students’ hours and pay.

“Though it is a frustrating compromise to some, overall, taking print away and putting more money towards students’ pockets gave students more opportunities than it took away,” Attaway wrote. “Now that I was offered the opportunity to take on the editor-in-chief position, I see The Vista going online as a way to give the Edmond community a news outlet again, since the Edmond Sun stopped printing in 2020.”

According to Leslie Briggs, an attorney with Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, however, the university’s decision to halt print publication — as well as remove The Vista’s racks from campus facilities — amounts to “egregiously anti-free speech conduct” in retaliation for “rigorous news coverage of university affairs.”

The decision to stop printing The Vista came after university administrators “repeatedly expressed dissatisfaction with editorial decisions” made by The Vista, Briggs wrote in an October letter to the university.

The stories in question covered efforts to install Narcan vending machines on campus, the university’s handling of a student’s suicide in 2024, and the Student Association’s failed vote of confidence in university President Todd Lamb before his official inauguration.

“Any possible notion that UCO’s decision was animated even slightly by concerns over budget is firmly negated by the fact that UCO refused to allow The Vista to accept outside funding to allow continued publication,” Briggs wrote. “That is not cost-saving — it’s censorship.”

University spokesperson Adrienne Nobles told the Tracker that The Vista “operates with full editorial independence.” She added that the university’s general counsel “found no evidence to support accusations of retaliation” and that “the allegations outlined in the letter are without merit.”