Even though Indiana's radio and television stations have been broadcasting most hours of the day for more than a hundred years, the majority of those programs were never recorded. During most of those years, stations could not afford the cost of recording, saving, and storing all of their broadcasts. Even if a station kept a library of important broadcasts or news stories, those often became the victim of a scarcity of space in the broadcast buildings and were trashed, often when the recording format changed, such as the transition from film to videotape in television in the 1970s and 1980s.
Traditional libraries and archives were slow to recognize the importance of these broadcasts, in favor of the familiar printed documents, such as newspapers and magazines. Even if some of the programming has been saved, the archives may not have the resources or equipment to play or transfer those broadcasts, so those reels or tapes may be forgotten on a shelf.
Even though much has been lost, many archives, libraries and other organizations have been putting more attention on audio and moving picture archives, especially in the past few decades. Please see our Other Archives page for more information on those collections.
One bright spot in the effort to save Indiana broadcast history is with the broadcasters themselves. Many radio and television people collected their best work and other broadcasts during their career. Those tapes, film reels, and other formats are sitting in boxes in basements around the country. Our primary effort is finding those personal archives and saving them from the dumpster. We also make it a priority to digitize the audio and moving image formats as soon as we can, to make them available to the public.
Currently, the Indiana Broadcast History Archive has eight collections and is in the process of acquiring four more. We have already digitized more than 1500 moving picture and audio files. We are adding new items to our digital collection weekly. Below is a list of our archive collections with more information on each one.
Ken Beckley Bio
The Ken Beckley Collection includes audio and video materials from his long career as a news broadcaster. Key collections include his newscasts at WTHI-TV in Terre Haute, Indiana, WLOS-TV in Asheville, North Carolina, and WFBM/WRTV in Indianapolis, Indiana, and items from his eighteen-year career with H.H. Gregg in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Lori Bullerdick Bio
The Lori Bullerdick Collection includes her work at WLWT in Cincinnati, WTHR in Indianapolis, WGN in Chicago, WXIN in Indianapolis and FOX.
Howard Caldwell Bio
Howard Caldwell's love for reading, writing and speaking started young and continued to grow as he did. Caldwell's first taste of broadcasting came when he was just six years old and would inspire him to graduate with a degree in journalism from Butler University. After spending a year at The Exponent in Hagerstown, Indiana, then another year in the Navy editing a weekly newsletter, Caldwell broke into broadcasting first at WTHI in Terre Haute, Indiana, then at WFBM (now WRTV) in Indianapolis. In the 35 years Caldwell was in Indianapolis, he covered stories locally, nationally and internationally, going as far as India. His daughter, Ginny Hingst, was able to provide the Media School with dozens of clips showcasing Caldwell's family and broadcasting life.
Mike Conway Collection
Mike Conway (1961 - ) was born and raised in Terre Haute, IN. He attended Terre Haute Schulte & Terre Haute South Vigo high schools. His love of journalism began in high school in Rose O'Neal's journalism course at South. He attended the High School Journalism Institute (HSJI) at IU.
Conway attended Indiana University and focused on Broadcast Journalism under legendary professor Richard Yoakam. He volunteered at WIUS (later WIUX) student radio all four years of college, serving as news director, disk jockey, and other duties. He also worked as a news assistant for News Director Margaret Joseph at WFIU, the NPR affiliate at Indiana University.
Conway started in television news as an intern reporter for his hometown station, WTHI-TV in Terre Haute in 1981. The next year, he was hired as weekend reporter/photographer and radio news anchor at WTHI. During his senior year at IU, Conway was the weekend sport anchor at WTHI-TV.
After graduating from IU in 1983, he moved to Traverse City, MI as reporter/photographer for WGTU/WGTQ, 29&8, the ABC affiliate. He worked his way up to News Director/Anchor until the station cancelled their local news service in 1984. He then moved to Dayton, OH as reporter, producer, and anchor for the NBC affiliate. WKEF-TV, Channel 22.
In 1987, Conway moved to Wichita, KS to work for legendary video storyteller Larry Hatteberg at KAKE-TV, the ABC affiliate. He opened and ran the station's Hutchinson newsroom as a reporter/photographer/anchor.
For the second half of his career, Conway focused on management and behind-the-scene roles in local television news. He moved back to Michigan to serve as newscast producer and executive producer at WNEM-TV, the NBC affiliate in Saginaw, MI. There he worked for fellow IU and WIUS alumnus Ron Petrovich.
Conway returned to Traverse City, MI as News Director for WPBN/WTOM-TV, the NBC affiliate. He served as a regional producer for the NBC News Channel in Charlotte, NC in the summer of 1996 during the Atlanta Olympics and presidential campaign. HIs final stop in local television news was as News Director for WICU/WFXP, the NBC and Fox affiliates in Erie, PA.
In 1999, he enrolled in the graduate journalism program at the University of Texas at Austin, where he earned his Master's Degree and Ph.D. During his time in Austin, he helped manage and produce Texas Newswatch, the student television newscast at the university. His area of research was American broadcast journalism history.
In 2004, Conway was hired as a research professor in the School of Journalism at Indiana University. He was later promoted to associate and then full professor. He continued his research into the early development of radio and television news in the United States. His first book, "The Origins of Television News in America" The Visualizers of CBS in the 1940s" was a finalist for the AEJMC Tankard Book Award. His second book, "Contested Ground: 'The Tunnel' and the Struggle over Television News in Cold War America" won the American Journalism Historians Association (AJHA) book award, the Library of American Broadcasting Foundation/Broadcast Education Association book award, and was once again a finalist for the Tankard Award.
He served as President of the American Journalism Historians Association (AJHA) and is the founder (along with Josh Bennett) of the Indiana Broadcast History Archive (IBHA).
Indiana Broadcast Pioneers Collection
The Indiana Broadcast Pioneers organization has a primary mission of recognizing outstanding career achievement by individuals, especially those demonstrating a lifetime of distinctive service in the public interest.
Indiana Broadcast Pioneers began in 1979 as a non-profit organization in support of public service, diversity, education, fellowship and the preservation of our state’s rich Broadcast history.
The Indiana Broadcast Pioneers Collection includes videos produced and featured each year as new members are inducted into the Richard M. Fairbanks Indiana Broadcast Pioneers Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame also has a display at the Indiana State Museum.
We thank the Indiana Broadcast Pioneers for allowing us to feature these videos on our IBHA site.
Indiana Journalism Collection
Collection from Ernie Pyle Hall, School of Journalism, at Indiana University
IU NewsNet
IU Newsnet is the signature curriculum-based news broadcast of The Media School. Students in the advanced television news classes produce, write, report, shoot, voice, edit and anchor the stories that comprise our newscast.
Kathleen Johnston Bio
Kathleen Johnston is the founding director of IU’s Michael I. Arnolt Center for Investigative Journalism. Johnston graduated from IU in 1982 with a degree in journalism and political science. Since then, she has worked at numerous national and local news organizations, from The Indianapolis News to CNN, the Birmingham Post-Herald to CBS. Johnston’s work spans a breadth of topics and media, but her primary focus is investigative reporting.
At CNN, she broke the news about allegations that medical workers may have euthanized patients at Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. She uncovered Medicare fraud in the medical devices business and a scheme that wasted tax dollars along the Canadian border, resulting in the cancellation of a $32 million Department of Homeland Security contract. After her team’s yearlong investigation into Congress’ refusal to disclose its spending earmarks, Congress began publishing the earmarks. The team won the National Press Foundation’s Everett McKinley Dirksen Award and a national Emmy for its coverage.
At WTHR in Indianapolis, Johnston co-managed a five-member team that won more than 40 national, state and local awards, including the station’s first DuPont-Columbia Silver Baton, for its coverage of mismanagement of the fortune of Lilly pharmaceutical heiress Ruth Lilly.
She has produced several documentaries, including the acclaimed “Footnotes of 9/11,” which was released just before the event’s 10-year anniversary. Other documentaries uncovered the unsafe infrastructure of cruise ships and the dangerous world of professional wrestling.
Her work at the Indianapolis News led to changes in the state’s open records law. In 2004 Johnston was awarded Sagamore of the Wabash, the state’s highest civilian award, for her long-time reporting in Indiana.
She has won numerous regional and national honors, including Emmy, Peabody, DuPont, and Murrow awards. In 2017, she received The Media School’s Distinguished Alumni Award.
Johnston has been involved with the development of the curriculum for the Arnolt Center since the start of the 2018-19 academic year.
Gerry Lanosga Bio
Oral History Collection
Indiana Broadcast History Oral History Collection
Ken Owen Bio
Ken Owen is a trusted veteran communicator, having spent nearly two decades as a television anchor and reporter before joining his alma mater, DePauw University, as its chief external communicator. Today he is principal of KO Communications & Strategies, working with clients in business and higher education. He continues to oversee DePauw's Ubben Lecture Series, which has brought individuals such as Malala Yousafzai, Tony Blair and Mikhail Gorbachev to the Greencastle campus. Owen’s award-winningTV career included stints in Fort Wayne, Asheville, N.C. and Indianapolis. He covered a wide range of newsmakers, including Ronald Reagan, Desmond Tutu, Paul McCartney, Lena Horne, Gerald Ford, and Billy Graham, who Owen accompanied to the then-Soviet Union in 1988 for the millennium of the Russian Orthodox Church. "Owen is one of the real talents in local TV news -- a good, honorable reporter and trustworthy anchor," wrote the Indianapolis Star’s Marc Allan in late 2000, when Owen announced plans to leave television. "He never tried to sell the sizzle if there was no steak."
Karen Rariden Bio
Anne Ryder Bio
Anne Ryder grew up in Indianapolis in the 1970’s when fellow Hoosiers like Jane Pauley were grading and paving the road for the growth of women in broadcast news. Anne graduated from Broad Ripple High School and the University of Missouri-Columbia Journalism School. Inducted into the Indiana Broadcast Hall of Fame in 2010, Anne worked as a producer, reporter and news anchor in Lafayette, (WLFI-CBS), Terre Haute,(WTHI-CBS), and Indianapolis. (WTHR-NBC) While at WTHR, she anchored all 4 weeknight shows. Anne created and produced “Hope to Tell,” an on-going franchise of stories and documentaries on hope and faith that took her to Bosnia, Belfast, Albania, Rome and Calcutta. Anne interviewed a variety of world leaders one-on-one, including the Dalai Lama and Mother Teresa, who granted her the last extensive interview In Calcutta she gave prior her death. Anne earned 18 regional Emmy Awards and five national awards for her news stories and documentaries. Anne was awarded honorary doctorates from three Universities and began teaching broadcast journalism at Indiana University in Bloomington in 2014.
Kurt Swadener Bio
Kurt Swadener is a 1976 graduate of Indiana University. He later earned an MBA in Marketing and Advertising from the IU Kelley School of Business. Kurt is a 44-year veteran of television and video production with experience in South Bend, Indiana, Kalamazoo, Michigan, Indianapolis, Indiana and Terre Haute, Indiana. 30 years of his career were spent at Indianapolis, Indiana ABC network affiliate WRTV. As a producer, director and manager, Kurt was responsible for a wide variety of projects during his tenure at WRTV. Many of his projects centered around coverage of the Indianapolis 500. Kurt also produced a wide variety of specials, documentaries, telethons, commercials, parades, and community events. His collection here consists of many of those WRTV projects.