The Communicator, a 3,000 biweekly circulation, is an independent student newspaper at IPFW. IPFW has more than 12,000 full- and part-time students, and has grown considerably over the past10 years. The Communicator brand is often redesigned as new design students filter into the newsroom. The publication changed from a broadsheet to a tabloid format in fall 2012, embracing the style of many alternative weeklies; however, in spring 2016 the editors decided to revert to broadsheet in order to emphasize their support and goal of professional journalism and allow for more advertisement and content space.
The paper, as previously mentioned, has undergone many changes with many different editors. The paper has changed in size and become much smaller and compact. The sections have also changed; "News & Politics" and "Arts & Entertainment" have given way to "News" and "Culture." From 2012-14 the paper employed a spread section called "The Dig," the brainchild of former editor and now publisher Kristan Seitz, in which editors wrote enterprise stories on rotation. The section died out in 2014 when the staff was mostly new and hadn't yet gotten into feature writing. The paper, in coordination with CollegeHoopsNet, broke a national story in 2005 when the school hired Dane Fife as its head basketball coach, making him the youngest coach currently at a Division I level. The story broke on the paper's website. In spring 2006, the paper made news by printing the controversial cartoons of the Muslim prophet Muhammad. It was one of the few American papers to do such at the time and just the fourth college newspaper in the country to do so. In fall 2009, The Communicator introduced a weekly sports article called "The Fish Picks vs. Pea Predictions" written by Lucas Fisher and Logan Pea. The article consisted of Fisher and Pea choosing the best games of the week and picking/predicting a winner and why they will win. In the first year, both Fisher and Pea finished with records of 82-78 and in the second year, they tied again going 128-117. In February 2010, the Communicator website was completely redesigned by former web editor Craig Lloyd and sees thousands of page views weekly. Craig also produced a weekly audio podcast series called "The CommuniCast" from April 2010 to April 2011. It was first hosted by Lloyd and contributing writer Alex Axthelm, in which they discussed the week in technology. Later on, new hosts Preston Patillo and Lindsay Sprunger took the reins and added various other topics on top of technology. The CommuniCast" stopped broadcasting in 2011.
Highly Notable Awards (since 2004)
2013 Division II Best Themed Issue—Indiana College Press Association
2013 Division II Newspaper of the Year Third Place—Indiana Collegiate Press Association
