The Indiana Daily Student

About The Indiana Daily Student

The Indiana Daily Student (IDS) is the independent, student-run newspaper of Indiana University Bloomington, published from Ernie Pyle Hall on the Bloomington campus. Tracing its origins to February 22, 1867, it is one of the oldest continuously operating college newspapers in the United States. The paper has been financially and editorially independent of the university since July 1, 1969, operating under its own charter and funded entirely by advertising revenue. It publishes news, sports, arts and opinion coverage for the IU campus and the wider Bloomington community, with its digital home at idsnews.com. In 2025 the paper became the center of a nationally watched dispute over student press freedom after Indiana University fired the paper's faculty adviser and ordered it to halt all print publication.

Origins as the Indiana Student

At its founding on February 22, 1867, the paper was known as the Indiana Student and was published twice a month by roughly half a dozen students. It was the first student newspaper at Indiana University, arriving less than half a century after the university itself was established. The fledgling paper struggled to sustain itself in its early years, reflecting the precarious economics of student publishing in the nineteenth century. Despite its modest resources, the paper established a pattern of student-led coverage of campus life that would continue for more than a century and a half. The paper's earliest surviving issues document the daily rhythms of a small Midwestern university town and the concerns of its students in the years following the Civil War.

Shutdown and relaunch

The Indiana Student ceased publication in 1874 due to financial difficulties, a fate that befell many early college newspapers. It remained dormant for eight years until William Lowe Bryan, then a student who would later become the university's tenth president, relaunched it in 1882. Bryan's revival of the paper is a notable episode in its history, linking the newspaper's survival directly to one of the most significant figures in the university's history. Under his leadership the paper regained its footing, and the publication that emerged from the 1882 relaunch formed the direct lineage of the modern Indiana Daily Student. The episode demonstrated the resilience of student journalism at Bloomington, a theme that would recur throughout the paper's history.

A series of name changes

The paper's name evolved with its ambitions. In 1899 the newspaper was renamed the Daily Student, reflecting its move toward daily publication. The university gained ownership of the paper in 1910 and used it as a journalism laboratory, and in 1911 the university formed the School of Journalism, requiring every journalism student to work on the paper and receive course credit and a grade for the effort. Serving as editor-in-chief required fifteen credit hours, though the position had already become a paid job in 1905. In 1914 the paper was renamed to its current publication title, the Indiana Daily Student, the name it has carried for more than a century. Florence Reid Myrick became the paper's first female editor-in-chief in 1897, a milestone achieved during the paper's thirty-second year.

The Ernie Pyle era

The paper's most famous alumnus, war correspondent Ernie Pyle, made his mark at the IDS in the early 1920s. During his junior year in 1921, Pyle became the city editor and news editor of the paper, and in September 1922 he became editor-in-chief. He left Indiana University a semester before graduation to take a job at a paper in La Porte, Indiana, beginning a career that would make him one of the most beloved journalists in American history. Writing human-interest stories from the battlefronts of Europe and the South Pacific as a war correspondent during World War II, Pyle became a national folk hero before being killed by Japanese gunfire in April 1945. The IDS moved to Ernie Pyle Hall in 1954, a building renamed in his honor, and his desk sat in the newsroom, a tangible link between the student paper and its celebrated alumnus.

A Pearl Harbor extra

On December 7, 1941, the IDS ran an extra on the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and it is one of two known college newspapers to publish that afternoon. The feat demonstrated the paper's capacity for rapid response to breaking national news even in an era before instantaneous communication. It remains one of the signature moments in the paper's long history, often cited in retrospectives of the newspaper's coverage of the twentieth century's defining events. The IDS has chronicled news from a student perspective through the end of World War I, the selection of Herman B Wells as IU's president, the Hoosiers' national basketball championship titles, and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

Financial and editorial independence

On July 1, 1969, the paper adopted its charter and became financially and editorially independent from the university. Journalism students were no longer required to work for the paper, and the publication moved from a curriculum-driven laboratory model to a fully independent student enterprise. The independence secured by the 1969 charter has been the paper's defining structural characteristic ever since, allowing it to report on university administration without institutional interference. That independence was put to the test in October 2025, when the university's actions prompted a national debate about whether the charter's protections still held.

Recognition and output

The IDS has 38 national Pacemaker Awards as of October 2025, making it one of the most decorated student newspapers in the country. The Pacemaker, awarded by the Associated Collegiate Press, is widely regarded as the Pulitzer Prize of collegiate journalism. During the 2021-2022 academic year, the Indiana Daily Student produced 2,579 articles, making it the seventh most prolific student publication in the United States in terms of articles published. The paper's history was the subject of the book Indiana Daily Student: 150 Years of Headlines, Deadlines and Bylines, a collection of behind-the-scenes remembrances, newsroom images and notable front pages published to mark the paper's sesquicentennial.

Notable alumni

Generations of IDS reporters and photographers have gone on to prominent careers in American and global media. In addition to Ernie Pyle, the paper's alumni include publisher and journalism philanthropist Nelson Poynter, NPR television critic Eric Deggans, and Pulitzer Prize winners Thomas French and Melissa Farlow. The paper has long served as a training ground for fledgling journalists, and its alumni network spans newsrooms, broadcast outlets and digital publications across the country. The sesquicentennial history volume includes remembrances from some of the most prominent journalists to emerge from the IDS, underscoring the paper's role in shaping the profession.

The 2025 press-freedom dispute

In October 2025 the IDS became the focus of a national controversy over student press freedom. The paper had reduced its print production in January 2025 to seven times per semester, citing financial challenges and a new business plan launched by the university's Media School. After the spring run, the university began pushing for the paper's special editions to include no news, only themed coverage of topics such as fall sports, Homecoming and Thanksgiving. Student media director Jim Rodenbush and the paper's editors opposed the demand. When Rodenbush pushed back against an order to remove news content from the newspaper's print editions on October 14, 2025, he was fired, and the next day administrators ordered the newspaper to halt all printing entirely. The outlet has continued publishing online. On October 30, Rodenbush sued the university in federal court seeking reinstatement; after the court noted it might lack jurisdiction, he voluntarily dismissed the case on April 21 while planning to refile. The paper's co-editors-in-chief called the firing a deliberate scare tactic and argued the university had no legal right to dictate what students could print, warning that the precedent threatened student media nationwide.

Digital presence and publications

The paper's website, idsnews.com, serves as its daily publishing platform, carrying news, sports, arts and opinion coverage for the IU and Bloomington communities. Over the years the IDS has published companion publications, including WEEKEND, an entertainment magazine available on Thursdays, and INside, a quarterly magazine that debuted in the fall of 2006. The paper is distributed for free from locations around campus and around Bloomington. It became a free publication in the fall of 1995, when its 25-cent cover price was dropped. Through its print editions, special editions, magazines and digital platforms, the IDS continues to serve as the primary source of student-produced journalism for one of the largest public universities in the Midwest.