The front page advertised the cost of subscription — $1.50 for 40 weeks — and announced the founders’ hopes to “double the size of our paper, if the patronage it receives at the hands of the public will justify us.”
Then, the paper was semi-monthly, and despite an eight-year period of dormancy beginning in 1875, progressed to a weekly newspaper before transitioning to a daily in 1898. At that point, the paper changed its name to the Daily Student.
The Indiana Daily Student would not get its current name until 1914, the same year the paper moved its printing operations from the Bloomington World-Courier to its own plant on campus. The paper printed six days a week, with the exception of a Sunday edition, until World War I, when a paper shortage caused the staff to scrap the Monday edition, after which it became a five-day publication.
“Born in a period of reconstruction following the civil war, the septuagenarian has recorded the day by day histories of the Spanish-American War and World War I, and the trying day that followed,” wrote staff writer Louis Hines on the paper’s 75th anniversary in 1942.
In 1882, William Lowe Bryan returned to IU to give the the Indiana Student a fresh start, eight years after financial constraints closed the paper. He had dropped out previously but returned after correspondence with a junior transfer from Butler University, Clarence Goodwin.
Bryan would eventually become the University’s 10th president, but for a period in the 1880s and 90s, he served as editor and publisher of the paper.
The IDS was integrated into the University’s journalism department as a learning workshop when the department was founded. Until May 5, 1910, the publication was owned by multiple stakeholders, after which all shares were signed over to the IU Board of Trustees.
The ownership and independence of the paper was a matter of conflict for decades following the decision. Many students felt a newspaper owned by the administration was not independent.
Ernie Pyle was elected editor-in-chief in September 1922. In contrast to present-day journalism career paths, Pyle dropped out of school before graduating to take a reporting job at the LaPorte Herald.
He eventually served as a foreign correspondent during World War II, reporting in both Pacific and European theaters. Pyle was killed April 18, 1945, while covering the Army’s 305th Infantry Regiment in Iejima, Japan.
Pyle’s “oaken desk” remained in use at the newsroom, which moved with the School of Journalism to Ernie Pyle Hall in 1954. It is now tradition for each editor-in-chief to sign the inside of the desk.
A new charter, the document separating the organization from the University, got approval from the Board of Trustees on July 1, 1969. This officially designated the IDS as an auxiliary and ensured editorial and financial independence, which had been and continues to be a source of debate.
In the first few decades of its independence, the paper struggled financially. Paid circulation returned in 1981, and on April 11, 1986, the IDS reported the expected income of $57,701 was far too high. Instead, the paper had only made $5,459.
The paper traversed this difficulty and resumed free, mass circulation starting in the 1995-1996 academic year.
The IDS staff launched the Indiana Digital Student, a precursor to the current website, the following summer. The first website was static and did not update with breaking news but was redesigned as technology evolved.
In fall 2013, the IU Board of Trustees voted to merge the School of Journalism with other telecommunication and film fields, creating the present-day Media School. The School of Journalism, established in 1974, became a department, moving out of Ernie Pyle Hall in summer 2016. The IDS newsroom accompanied the department to Franklin Hall.
Ernie Pyle’s desk, which editors worked at for decades following his death, sits in the entry to the office for IU Student Media. A newspaper which began with a staff of a half dozen now has about 75 regular contributors, with another 175 people on Student Media’s payroll.
Check out these other stories about the IDS's 150th year:
Past editors-in-chief discuss their time at the IDS
Bloomington residents share thoughts about IDS
Art venues reflect on IDS coverage through the years, offer advice for the future
