Mission Statement

Student media seek to inform and enlighten the Bloomington campus community and to contribute to and enrich an atmosphere of free inquiry, expression and discussion. In exercising the freedom and independence necessary for fulfilling this mission, the editors and their staff are accountable for abiding by the laws that govern expression and for upholding professional standards of ethical practice.

Student media also enable students to practice and professionalize the knowledge, skills and values they learn in the classroom.

Our Charter

Since the founding of the Indiana Daily Student (IDS) in 1867 and the Arbutus in 1893, these publications have served the needs and interests of the Bloomington campus community. To protect their independence and freedom, Indiana University trustees approved a charter for the IDS in 1969 and for the Arbutus in 1981.

This revised charter converges existing and future evolutions of the IDS and Arbutus under a single Student Media Board and Director of Student Media and re-affirms the independence and freedom of these student media in serving the Bloomington campus community. This Charter reaffirms that student media operating under its provisions are declared limited public forums where final content decisions and responsibility rest with duly appointed student editors and managers.

Policies

Code of Ethics

IU Student Media is, first and foremost, dedicated to accurate news presentation in its community. It will report news of the Indiana University community as well as Bloomington, Indiana, and the United States. It will also serve as a forum for the exchange of ideas from all its constituent groups. To this end, it must be permitted to operate without influence or control by any of its constituent groups, and no news contributor or editor of IU Student Media is permitted to be controlled or any influenced by any of these groups.

Campus publications and the campus press act as a public forum for expression on numerous ideas, concerns and opinions. Duly appointed student editors are respon- sible for, and make all decisions regarding content. The code of ethics should be treated as a guideline, not as set rules, and final decisions regarding regulations, conduct and enforcement will be at the editor-in-chief’s discretion. Response to code violations is the responsibility of the current editor.

Adherence to a journalism code of ethics will lead to greater credibility and will help IU Student Media fulfill this mission.
These ethical guidelines and policies apply to all staffers of the Indiana Daily Student, IDS Weekend, idsnews.com, Arbutus, Inside magazine, all their social media and all future endeavors of Student Media.

Download Code of Ethics

Copyright Notice

All content on this site, including but not limited to text, graphics, photographs, design, code, archived material, etc., is copyrighted to IU Student Media. This includes The Indiana Daily Student Web site.

Privacy Practices

IU Student Media may use your IP address for technical administration of our Web sites or servers. This information is used to gather broad demographic information.

Some features of our Web sites may require more detailed contact information, including but not limited to name, age grouping, e-mail address, zip code and gender. This information is typically used to allow us to send out notifications of contest wins, responses to inquiries or requests for information from us or special events. Other uses of this data may be to customize the visitor’s experience so that they can receive the content they prefer.

Our Web sites may enable you to communicate with other visitors to our sites through features like blogs, forums and comments. When you subscribe to these services, other visitors may collect your data. This is typically a username or “screen name” that you voluntarily provide.

We do not rent, sell, trade or otherwise give to other parties any information visitors of our site provide us. This includes mailing lists, contest entries, requests for information or any other information on a form on which we ask you to provide information.

We will not “spam” you and it is our policy not to send unsolicited mail. Although some features will remain unavailable without disclosure of contact information, visitors will be given the opportunity to opt-out.

Security

IU Student Media has implemented security policies, rules and technical measures to protect the personal data that we have under our control. This includes protection from unauthorized access, improper use or disclosure, unauthorized modification and unlawful destruction or accidental loss. All our employees who have access to and are associated with the processing of personal data are obliged to respect the confidentiality of our visitor’s personal data. We will not disclose your personal information to State institutions and authorities, except if required by law or other regulation.

Children's Guidelines

We do not knowingly collect personal data from children. IU Student Media assumes that visitors to our Web sites are of legal age. All content on IU Student Media sites may not be appropriate for children. Articles may occasionally contain explicit or suggestive content, profanity and other mature material. Parental guidance is encouraged.

Terms of Use

This site includes interactive features such as Weblogs, comment tools and e-mail services. Responsibility for what is posted using these features lies with each user. You are responsible for the material you post or send. IU Student Media does not edit or control the material you or others provide. Conditions for your use of the site assumes that you will not:

• Use the site to post or transmit unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, pornographic, profane or indecent information.
• Use the site to violate or infringe upon the rights of others, including privacy copyright or trademark rights.
• Restrict or inhibit other users from enjoying the site, including interference with servers or networks used to provide the site.
• Use the site to commit illegal activities or encourage others to do so, including hacking or password mining
• Use the site to post or transmit harmful software or other material such as a virus.
• Use the site for commercial purposes, including solicitation to anyone to buy or sell products or services or make donations of any kind without our written permission.
• Use information posted by other users to gather information for marketing purposes.

We have no obligation to monitor any bulletin boards, chat rooms, Weblogs or other interactive areas of the site. We reserve the right to disclose any information to satisfy any law, regulation or governmental request. We may also remove or refuse to post information or material that is objectionable or in violation of our Terms of Use. Violation of our Terms of Use may result in denial of services.

Some features of this site require that you provide demographic information about yourself or that you register with us using a form to provide personally identifiable information. You agree to provide accurate, true and current information about yourself. Providing inaccurate, false or outdated information may result in suspended or terminated access to our site and its services. Our use of your information is governed by our Privacy Practices. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your account credentials. You are also responsible for activities that occur using your account, including any loss or damage arising from your failure to protect your information.

Comments

The Indiana Daily Student encourages reader comments and criticisms of our work. However, the IDS reserves the right to remove any comment that violates our commenting policies. This includes our website as well as our social media accounts. Violations that may result in removal include:

• Advertising, off-topic commentary, spam, plagiarism and copyrighted material;
• Personal attacks, abuse or harassment of other community members, subjects of our coverage or staff;
• Hate speech or stereotypes that attack or disparage an ethnic, sexual or religious group or a member of any such group;
• Obscenities, vulgarities or any variation of such that suggests, connotes or contains indecent, offensive or lewd speech;
• Commenting using a pseudonym or fake account;

All comments, respectfully presented, are welcome. We reserve the right to suspend or block users as necessary. The IDS will use a three-strike policy when it comes to blocking a user. The first time a user breaks the commenting rules, the comment will be removed and recorded. The second time the comment will be removed, and the user will be contacted. If a user chooses to break the commenting rules a third time, they will be blocked from future commenting.

If you see a comment that may violate IDS commenting policy, please email socialmedia@idsnews.com.

Publisher's Notice

All housing advertised is subject to the Federal Fair Housing Act which makes it illegal to advertise preference, limitations, or discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status or national origin, or intention to make any such reference, limitation or discrimination. We will not accept any advertising for housing which is in violation of the law. All persons are hereby informed that all dwellings advertised are available on an equal opportunity basis.