Turning 140

The Indiana Daily Student celebrated its birthday last week. With 140 blown-out candles – and 140 years of various editors and writers, designers, advertising employees, photographers and columnists – the IDS has walked a path that has been at times bumpy, at other times victorious.\nBut our assessment and that of the academic community fails in comparison to the opinion of the most important part of the newspaper: the readers.\nSo, in an attempt to understand our successes and downfalls, our good decisions and our largest errors, the editorial board is asking for feedback on the IDS. \nPresented in this editorial are a few topics of debate in the newspaper business, and we would like your opinions on them.\nWhile many of the same opportunities for response are available on Deadline, the IDS management blog (www.idsnews.com/blogs/deadline), we encourage those concerned with these issues – or any other – to write letters to the Jordan River Forum and allow your ideas to be heard.\nFirst, what is more important for the IDS front page: strong news reporting or feature coverage of campus events? While we strive to cover both of these effectively, there is only so much space on the front page. Hard news stories are important to inform the community of important issues, such as the upcoming announcement of the next w president. Features stories are fun to read and give important events much deserved coverage. Which, then, should we make our priority?\nSecond, sports coverage and news coverage often compete for space. It is an interesting question of what we should dedicate more coverage to, especially in such a competitive athletics conference as the Big Ten. Often, the IDS has given major coverage to sporting events when an argument could be made that news should have been given more adequate coverage on that day. As IU community members, what is more important to you: knowing the intricacies of last evening’s basketball game or the developments in the latest news saga?\nThird, our design is an important aspect. Do you prefer a great number of news stories that give coverage to events and occurrences around IU (remember, the IDS will never have the capacity to cover them all, as there is much newsworthy activity in Bloomington). Or do you prefer a visuals-heavy paper, with a wide variety of photos and designs that tell the story in a fresh way? Ideally, the two work together and make for an easy reading experience. But when a choice has to be made, which is more important?\nThese are only a few issues we deal with every day. If you have any other concerns, we hope to hear those too. Finding a political bias in the paper? Give us the evidence so we can remedy possible objectivity problems. Wondering about the accuracy of our news coverage? Let us know and we’ll strive to improve. While we are all learning and hope to take a great amount of experience from the IDS, our primary concern will forever be our readers.