The story immediately took off. The A.S.U. newspaper has been online only since the fall of 2014, and a popular story can garner a few thousand views on the website. Mr. Howard’s cracked 100,000.

Mr. Howard grew up in Phoenix and was drawn to journalism in part because of his mother, who studied it in college. He was further inspired when he joined his high school newspaper, The Brophy Roundup, and met a teacher who advised the paper and encouraged its journalists to never shy away from serious stories, like coverage of the soccer team’s hazing.

Since he arrived at A.S.U., the student newspaper has been a central focus.

“What do I do outside of it? I feel like I spend a lot of time at The State Press,” Mr. Howard said.

International diplomacy is not a frequent subject of coverage for The State Press, which has a staff of about 100 editors and reporters who work from a basement office filled with “fairy lights, the occasional cockroach and lots of love,” according to Kimberly Rapanut, the current editor in chief.