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Table of Contents
Our History
On March 31, 2025, Ball State Media major Vivian Bostick launched Vivian Bostick News (VBN), a Blogger-powered site, from her small room at the Jack Beyerl Residence Hall. The goal? To do what she came here to do in the first place: Learn to share the voices of the community she’s serving.
Bostick applied as a media outlet to the Public News Service (PNS), receiving approval and access to statewide and national news and podcasts.
On August 9, 2025, Bostick moved into her apartment. One of the rooms is Bostick’s dedicated office, home of The CI’s operations, now equipped with a folding table, chair, TV, and printer.
On September 1, 2025, The Muncie Post-Democrat syndicated a VBN report on Tiffanie Williams, who is now in Mexico on political asylum. According to an interview with Williams, as well as body camera footage and a medical record, Williams was assaulted after Eaton Police officers—including current Ball State officer Michael Conner—entered her apartment without a warrant.
On September 9, 2025, Bostick rebranded VBN to The Cardinal Independent (The CI) and acquired CIMuncie.org, reaffirming and identifying the platform’s focus on the Ball State and broader Muncie community.
When Hugh Jackman visited Ball State on September 15, 2025, Bostick caught up with him and briefly mentioned The CI. Jackman, after a handshake, told Bostick “Good luck.”
On September 27, 2025, Ball State’s NewsLink Indiana (NLI) published an interview with Bostick, where she said, “I created the website to give me an outlet, somewhere I can show my work because I’m not going to walk into a news station and say ‘Hey, I graduated from Ball State.’ They are going to ask me what I have done. If I walk in with nothing, I’m concerned that I won’t have a job. I want to build my own experience because in Indy, experience was coming to me. In Muncie, I believe you got to make it yourself.”
Assistant Lecturer Max van Dongen called Bostick a “trailblazer.”
At the time of NLI‘s story, The CI had over 10,000 readers.
On October 5, 2025, Bostick launched CI Radio (also referred to as The CI Radio Network) as an auxiliary service of The CI, delivering an internet broadcast of news and music to the Muncie community.
CI Radio is accessible online at CIMuncie.org/radio, Roku TVs in the United States (where it’s, at the time of launch, Muncie’s only news and radio channel), and other internet radio providers.
On October 9, 2025, Bostick was the first journalist on the scene of a protest in support of Palestine. When NLI arrived and asked questions about student media, later mischaracterizing the event as a “student media protest,” Bostick utilized The CI to provide an immediate factual correction.
On February 1, 2026, The CI switched its primary frontend from the legacy Blogger site (news.VivianBostick.com) to a new Substack site (CIMuncie.substack.com), putting The CI’s branding in the URL, providing a simpler user interface, and directly accepting monthly and annual support without needing an external service.
Both sites remain accessible and maintained, however, Substack readers get stories first—the legacy site pulls from Substack twice a day. When readers visit CIMuncie.org, it respects if they want to see the legacy or new UI, which can be switched from either site’s menu.
At the time of the transition to Substack, The CI’s legacy site had 29,293 readers.
On February 25, 2026, The CI launched The 765+, a podcast delivering The CI’s independent journalism, as well as statewide and national stories relevant to the community through the PNS. The 765+ is now streaming on major podcast service providers.
On February 27, 2026, The CI launched TGN Network (short for Town, Gown, Now Network) as a YouTube channel and standalone website. While The CI is, and will continue to focus on, news, TGN is the video wing, and hopes to bridge the “town-gown divide” by also delivering lifestyle content that’s relevant to as much people as possible. The CI’s branding will continue to be used in news videos, however, TGN will be the publisher of video content, and the TGN branding will be used on non-news content.
No matter what you call us or where you find us, we thank you for your trust.
Our Contributors
Team CI
Vivian Bostick, Founder, Operations & Multimedia Journalist
Guest Op-Ed Writers
These people have sent at least one Op-Ed to The CI. Op-Eds are the opinions of the writers. Email us your op-eds and articles as a Google Docs link to newsroom@CIMuncie.org.
Sam Allen
Alex Bordenkecher
Uther Henderson
Joseph Souza
Media Partners
Public News Service, Wire Partner
The Muncie Post-Democrat, Select Syndication
Contact Us
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