135 years of news

Happy Birthday, IDS. Today the paper is 135 years old. News of wars, disasters and homecomings has filled its pages for more than six spans of my lifetime.\nEvery semester the paper changes internally but appears much the same to its readers. It's like the same play staged with a different cast and a new director. Many of the scenes are repeated: The prospective editor facing the scrutiny of a nine-member committee commissioned to make him or her quake. The staff putting in hours for pay that would make INPIRG protest on our behalf. The friendships and romances and lessons learned the hard way, reproduced 17,000 times.\nOne of the greatest plot twists in IDS history came in 1969, when the paper became independent from the University and established the self-supporting model that exists today. All of our operating expenses come from advertising revenue, and IU has no power over what we print. Within the paper, the spotlight is fully on student journalists who have the opportunity to emulate the model of a professional newspaper. Except most professional newspapers have something we don't: Shareholders.\nAt the IDS, we don't have to worry about profit margins or corporate mandates. Most newspapers face financial realities that force them to consider cost before quality. They can't send reporters to the "axis of evil" (wherever that is this week) because it costs too much. They can't hire insightful editorial writers; it's cheaper to print syndicated columnists. Investigating issues that affect readers diverts the attention of talented reporters; the paper needs a story now.\nSo much of what is wrong with journalism goes back to the fact that the industry is being shoved into a business model suited much better for making shoes than news. A factory can maximize profit and people will still be able to walk in their loafers, but a news organization without reporting resources hinders readers' ability to assess, understand and analyze the world around them.\nThis is the environment that IDS journalists will enter when they graduate.\nBut not yet.\nAt the IDS we have the luxury of always putting the news first. The paper is a training ground where journalists are steeped in the idealistic mission of serving readers and telling the truth. Purely and simply. Our resources are only constrained by lack of imagination, cash and the fact that we're full-time students. But beyond those factors, the paper is for students, by students. \nThe media is facing problems on a broad and deep scale. After 135 years of operation and 33 years of independence, the IDS is a learning lab based on doing what a group of students deems best for the student body. It's based on embracing independence for readers who can appreciate or criticize our decisions but know that they were reached in an environment of diverse ideologies, deeply held principles and vigorous debates.\nWhile IDS journalists will enter a media environment that is more profit-propelled and subject to special interests than ever before, they come from a place where freedom of the press is absolute. \nIn the spirit of all IDS journalists who have come before me and all who will come after me, I celebrate the dedication to truth, open debate and democracy. \nI wish the IDS a very happy birthday.