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Joseph Gonzalez
‘28
In the wake of Donald Trump's surprising 2016 win that would begin his first term as U.S. President, there was a moment of introspection among the “legacy media” – a brief consensus that they may be out of touch with “middle” – or as some would say “forgotten” – America. On November 13, 2016, New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and Executive Editor Dean Baquet published a “To Our Readers” in which they promised, “As we reflect on the momentous result, and the months of reporting and polling that preceded it, we aim to rededicate ourselves to the fundamental mission of Times journalism. That is to report America and the world honestly, without fear or favor, striving always to understand and reflect all political perspectives and life experiences in the stories that we bring to you.” I leave it to the reader to decide whether or not they upheld this promise.
The media landscape has changed since 2016; it is far more accessible and deserves greater scrutiny. Despite the current threats posed by “cheap fakes” and AI’s “deepfakes” to our ability to perceive what’s true, the trusted names in news have lost trust and are bleeding subscribers. On February 4th, 2026, The Washington Post announced it is laying off one-third of its work force, sharply scaling back the paper's coverage of sports and foreign news. While they downsize, the new age of disruptors thrives, capturing a new generation of disenfranchised media consumers looking for places to learn about the world.
RocaNews is one of those new platforms growing by the seemingly simple acts of building trust and conducting on-the-ground reporting in the places the New York Times promised to do. They believe their readers are smart enough to form their own opinions. At least that was being claimed on February 19th in McCosh Hall at an event entitled RocaNews, Non-Partisan Reporting, and the Fight against Legacy Media organized by the Princeton Open Campus Coalition (POCC). RocaNews currently has 2 million instagram followers, 651,000 YouTube subscribers, and a daily newsletter sent to over 200,000 subscribers. If that growth is not enough to convince you that they are doing something right, you can see for yourself through a myriad of ways, all focused on ease of access and user experience. Roca uses Instagram and newsletters to build a go-to news community based on factual, on-the-ground reporting.
The event featured the CEOs of RocaNews, Max Towey and Billy Carney. At 29 and 30 respectively, they are recognised as leaders of one of the world's fastest growing media companies. These 2024 Forbes 30 Under 30 Honorees came across as affable and personable, sitting casually dressed on a stage in front of a group of students. The only talk they did ‘at’ the crowd was while recounting RocaNews’ founding in August 2020, during the first year of the pandemic. Although they had carved out a standard Q&A time for their last 30 minutes, they engaged in conversation with the audience the whole time, asking questions to the crowd and responding to reactions. Their questions included “what is the free speech climate on campus like?” and “what platforms do you consume news on?” The latter opened up a flood of sources, people, and platforms I had never even heard of. What was not discussed was the origin of the name “Roca,” which is short for “Pororoca,” a biannual wave that sweeps the Amazon River. Surfers come from across the world to surf the Pororoca; it’s a wave that brings people together.
The reference aligns with their pitch: most news is “negative, partisan, and alarmist,” designed mostly as clickbait. One example they cited was the New York Times “11 Supposedly Fun Things We’ll Never Do the Same Way Again.” Written during the pandemic, it maintained that things like “blowing out the candles on your cake, shopping aimlessly, and shaking hands, hugging a friend, and kissing a cheek would never be the same.” As Max Towey exclaimed, “when you read stuff like that, you get a feeling that they don’t even like people.”
“Disruptors” does not accurately describe them; they are a breath of fresh air. I will admit that I had no knowledge of RocaNews prior to this event. I continue to follow the sources that I have always followed, but more options are not a bad thing.
Is there any media or point of view that is not biased in some way? What makes this crisis in legacy media a threat to its own existence is the claim to be fair and balanced while being clearly partisan to either the right or left. RocaNews displays a welcome change to that. If you are fed up with the divisiveness or the polarization of the current climate, then (like Roca’s namesake) take a dive into RocaNews and see for yourself if calming waves wash over you.
Joseph Gonzalez '28 is an Army and Marine Corps combat veteran and transfer student from Brentwood, NY, majoring in History. He is a PFS Writing Fellow.
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Free speech is usually described as a right one either has or does not have, relative to the laws of one’s residence. But a right, like a muscle, is only as strong as its use. When my family flew to the United States in 2018, I naively thought that I had escaped the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) systematic suppression of free speech. I believed that I would access Google, YouTube, and Winnie the Pooh without any need for a VPN to circumvent the “Great Firewall of China,” a term used to describe the CCP’s firm control on online content. But I was clueless: I unknowingly carried a part of the repression within me.
In April 1995, University maintenance crews spent two days cleaning “walkways, benches, plazas and walls on campus,” working to remove not dirt or debris, but simple sidewalk chalk. The chalk drawings, according to a report from The Daily Princetonian, consisted of “pro-gay messages” written by hand during Pride Week. After the removal, advocates were rightly in uproar. Following the incident, the University, claiming that the discrepancy had transpired because of “cross-office confusion,” clarified its chalking policy — it was henceforth banned, in all cases.
Three decades on, chalk at Princeton has found itself relegated to dusty trays in classrooms and lecture halls. Hardly anyone — students, activists, artists, campus organizations, candidates, schoolchildren — chalks University grounds anymore. Simply put, the University’s ban has worked. But the question remains: Why is Princeton so afraid of chalk?
There is exactly one kind of institution in the world whose product is “thinking” — the university. This is an existential challenge for every university, Princeton most definitely included, now that nearly all artificial intelligence is purpose-built to offload the hard work of thinking.
Universities need to return to the foundations of learning with trust — and verification — at the heart of their relationship with students. They also need to be far more prescriptive about what learning looks like so that students who arrive with limited capacity for deep reading have the time and space to develop their critical thinking skills.
