At Indiana University, the journalism school forgot what journalism is for
The Indiana Daily Student, the venerated student newspaper of Indiana University, has taken home oodles of accolades, published ground-breaking work and punched above its weight at every turn.
Its alums have won Pulitzers and crowded national newsrooms. Alumni include famed World War II reporter Ernie Pyle, three-time Pulitzer-winning news photographer Michel du Cille, and even the namesake of this institute: Nelson Poynter was an Indiana boy who cut his journalism teeth on campus as the editor-in-chief of the IDS.
But none of that seems to matter to the college that it calls home, or the academic department that has boasted about the IDS’s success for years.
This week, the paper is notable for a truly disappointing reason. Indiana University fired IDS adviser Jim Rodenbush on Tuesday afternoon in what appears to be a grapple for control over the pages of an upcoming print issue. The Indianapolis Star reported the firing on Tuesday afternoon, including an image of the termination letter that calls Rodenbush’s conduct “unacceptable.”
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