The School of Journalism strongly urges all journalism students to work on campus media to develop the skills from their journalism classes. Students get hands-on experience to compete for internships and careers in news, public relations, advertising, and broadcasting.
More than 250 students work each semester for IU student media, on the first floor of Ernie Pyle Hall. They produce the Indiana Daily Student (IDS) newspaper, Inside magazine and Arbutus yearbook, all funded entirely through advertising revenue.
Students of all majors are welcome to apply for the staffs, hired by student editors, who have full responsibility for content.
Working at the IDS are reporters, editors, photojournalists, videographers, copy editors, designers, illustrators, graphics journalists, columnists, editorial writers, bloggers, and podcasters. Students also sell and produce advertising, implement marketing campaigns, and distribute newspapers.
The IDS publishes five days per week in fall and spring semesters and twice weekly in summer, with up to 15,000 copies distributed at dozens of points across and near campus.
Nearly all IDS staff members contribute to idsnews.com, its 24/7 site for breaking news, features, commentary, photos, and multimedia. The site includes blogs for news, sports, and opinion, as well as live blogs for leading Hoosier sports. The IDS also posts Twitter feeds for news, sports, and entertainment. Online readership has grown exponentially, reaching more than 550,000 page visits during peak months.
A lively part of the IDS is the Thursday Weekend section. It covers entertainment and pop culture—from local to global—with features, reviews, and calendars. Even more coverage goes on the Weekend site, idsnews.com/weekend, with its Live Buzz entertainment blog.
Inside, the IDS’s quarterly magazine launched in 2006, has grown in sophistication with in-depth features, quick-read departments, compelling portraiture, and four-color designs.
The 400-page IU yearbook, the Arbutus (ar-BYOU-tuss), is named for wildflowers that once grew east of Bloomington. It offers excellent student experience in photojournalism, event reporting, feature writing, sportswriting, copy editing, and design.
The work of IU student journalists has long earned national recognition. The IDS, Arbutus, and now Inside and American Student Radio win top national prizes and recognition, and students receive dozens of state and national honors each year.
The newest of these is American Student Radio, which was launched by IU journalism students in February 2012 at americanstudentradio.org. This national online station is a platform for college and high school students across the country, giving them a chance to report for and with each other and to receive direct feedback from acclaimed national professionals.
For example, the award winning Kitchen Sisters, The American Life's Ira Glass, Planet Money's Robert Smith, NPR's Tamara Keith and Radiolab's Soren Wheeler have worked by Skype, phone and in person with ASR student leaders and reporters. These are just a few of the national professionals that work one-on-one with students, give lectures and host regular Q/As.
Students aspiring for media careers can also explore opportunities outside Ernie Pyle Hall. IU journalism students work for Indiana Alumni magazine, at 1000 E. 17th Street, and they contribute to many other publications, both print and online, in academic units, residence halls, sororities, and fraternities.
Broadcast-news students gain experience at WTIU and WFIU, the university’s public TV and radio stations, in the Radio-Television Building on the Bloomington campus. WTIU airs a student-produced newscast, and both WTIU and WFIU offer internship opportunities.
Students can also work for WIUX, the student-run FM radio station, as well as IU’s student TV station, IUS TV. Both have offices on campus.