DePauw Stories

When COVID-19 forced DePauw to close campus and send students home, Ian Brundige ’22 unexpectedly got a taste of the life of a professional reporter.

“I was one of the main people writing those breaking news stories,” while friends “were all just being sad about it. And I (thought) ‘Great. Now I have to do the work of writing this. I don’t even have time to process my own sadness about it.’”

Brundige, then managing editor, went on to become editor-in-chief in fall 2020, a job he won by proposing an overhaul of the staff organization. Stymied by the closed campus, he instead presided over a switch to digital publication that term, when The DePauw produced only one print issue – a recap of online stories staffers produced from afar. In spring 2021, he continued in the top job, and the newspaper published print editions every other week.

Brundige had a reporting internship last summer with the Carnegie-Knight News21 multimedia initiative, yet finds himself drawn to newsroom supervision post-graduation. A sculptor and mixed-media artist, he also is considering designing museum exhibits or fashion runways.

“I love storytelling. I love the experience that I’ve gained from journalism,” he said. “And I think that journalism is an extremely important tool in society and extremely valuable from a storytelling aspect and storytelling about real things that are happening, affecting real people’s lives on a day-to-day basis.

“… I just think that the future of that storytelling is more digital, more interactive, more engaging pathways than traditional journalism encapsulates sometimes. So I think I see myself as a journalist; I just don’t necessarily see myself working at a newspaper or working at that standard journalism institution.”