When tornadoes touched down near campus, presidential candidates swept the state, and Hawkeye wrestlers triumphed as national champions, staff members from the Daily Iowan were there, asking questions, capturing images, and telling stories.

For more than a century, The University of Iowa’s student-run weekday newspaper has been an important news source for the University community and an invaluable training ground for aspiring journalists.

It’s also considered one of the best, consistently earning top honors from the Iowa Newspaper Association, Associated Collegiate Press, and Society of Professional Journalists.

Student-run newspapers at Iowa go back to 1868. The first student newspaper west of the Mississippi, the paper was the first college daily to be a full member of the Associated Press and the first all-color college daily. Today it is the only college paper to be delivered door to door.

Responding to the changing ways consumers get their news, today’s DI is more than a broadsheet. The operation includes a web site—updated as news breaks throughout the day—and a 15-minute daily television news program, Daily Iowan Television. The paper attracts about 50,000 readers a day, while the web site is visited daily by more than 12,000.

The DI’s student staff is involved in every step of the news cycle, learning the trade in a setting that closely mirrors the profession. The 100-member staff includes print and broadcast reporters, editors, photographers, graphic designers, TV camera operators, and TV producers. Working out of a high-tech newsroom in the Adler Journalism Building, students compete with professional newspapers statewide.

DI alums have gone on to land jobs at well-known newspapers around the country, including the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, and Washington Post.

News consumers today expect up-to-the-minute, relevant coverage of major events. The DI provides the ideal training ground for the journalists of the future.

The Daily Iowan
Daily Iowan TV
School of Journalism and Mass Communication

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