Community Foundation of Bloomington & Monroe County Awards Grant to IU Media School to Expand Local News Coverage

The Indiana Newsroom, a new learning lab in The Media School at Indiana University Bloomington, will expand local coverage on underreported issues affecting communities across southern Indiana, while providing paid experiential learning opportunities for IU student journalists.

Launching this fall and funded by a two-year, $300,000 grant from the Community Foundation of Bloomington and Monroe County, the learning lab will operate using a content-sharing model common across today’s media landscape. Professional and student news organizations will partner with students under the guidance of a new Media School faculty member whose position will be supported by the grant.

“An important goal of this initiative is to expand the capacity for reporting that’s already being done by student and professional media organizations in our region,” said Suzannah Evans Comfort, associate professor in The Media School, who was instrumental in securing the grant.

“We’re looking to develop coverage on communities and issues that haven’t received as much news attention simply because of the limited resources facing our local news organizations,” Comfort said. “We’ve felt for some time that there was a stronger role for The Media School to play in supporting our local news landscape, and students are going to gain valuable hands-on experience that will make them better-prepared journalists when they graduate.”

Headquartered in a dedicated space in Franklin Hall on the Bloomington campus, the program will employ up to 15 student reporters per semester.

The initiative will establish partnerships with both professional and independent student news organizations, beginning with Indiana Public Media, to strengthen the reach, credibility, and real-world impact of student reporting.

“As a service of Indiana University, WFIU and WTIU have a long-standing mission to connect our community with the information and resources that improve Hoosier lives,” said Mike Arnold, executive director of integrated public media. “This partnership with the Indiana Newsroom expands that mission, giving us the capacity to dig deeper into the stories affecting southern Indiana through the fresh eyes of student journalists. We are excited to see what this becomes as more partners are involved in this project.”

Other news organizations will be invited to join as the program expands.

“At the heart of the Community Foundation is a vision for a vibrant Monroe County where every individual has the opportunity to thrive,” said Tina Peterson, president and CEO of the Community Foundation of Bloomington and Monroe County. 

“Access to trusted information is vital for residents to feel connected and empowered to participate in civic decisions that shape their daily lives. Strengthening local news is central to that work, which is why the foundation has been working in multiple ways to support a more resilient and collaborative local news ecosystem.”

“Through this partnership with Indiana University, we’re not only expanding coverage across the Indiana Uplands region; we’re also helping build a stronger pipeline of journalists equipped with the skills and experiences necessary to report thoughtfully on local communities throughout their careers.”

The grant will support student pay and travel as well as the hiring of a visiting professor of community journalism to serve as the lab’s founding director.

Students will begin working through a three-credit community journalism course and become eligible for paid positions during their second semester of participation.