Technician (newspaper)

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Technician is NC State's student newspaper since 1920.

Technician is the student newspaper of North Carolina State University. Its first edition was published in 1920, and it has been published continuously since that date.

The newspaper is published five times per week and also has an online presence, www.technicianonline.com. In the mid-1990s it was one of the first university newspapers to publish to the World Wide Web.

Chris Hondros, a photographer and 2003 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, is perhaps Technician's most notable alumnus.

North Carolina State University has no journalism school. Unlike other university newspapers which staff junior positions with students who work for academic credit, Technician's editorial staff is comprised of paid volunteers.

The newspaper's funding is managed by the university's Student Media Authority. Technician submits an annual budget request that is reviewed, modified as necessary and approved by the authority each spring. Advertising income is sent to the authority and forms the revenue pool that is disbursed to the authority's constitutent media, including the yearbook, radio station, and other publications.

Like many student newspapers, Technician has seen its share of controversies, including:

In 1990, the newspaper ran an editorial calling for the dismissal of embattled head basketball coach Jim Valvano. Valvano, a popular figure who led the team to the 1983 national championship, had come under fire for ethical and regulatory lapses in handling the basketball program. The editorial was resented as a publicity stunt. Valvano ultimately left the university under fire.

In 1992, a conservative opinion columnist harshly criticized African-American students' demands for a black cultural center at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. The inflammatory article resulted in widespread theft of the edition (it is distributed free) and demonstrators burned some in campus protests. The aftermath led to the creation of the university's African-American interest publication, The Nubian Message.

In 1993, the men's basketball team lost to Campbell University for the first time since the 1940s. A story on the defeat ran under the headline Worst loss since Hitler and was likewise castigated for insensitivity.

From 1994 to 1995 teams from Technician and The Daily Tar Heel played a football game on the Friday preceding the football game played by the rival universities' football varsities. This game was called The Grudge Bowl and it was played according to all the rules of American college football, but with none of the protective equipment. Technician won both meetings in blowouts, claiming a booby-prize called "The Golden Plunger" and, in 1994, unilaterally declaring itself as the "National Football Champion of College Student Media." The Daily Tar Heel declined to renew the series after hosting the second game, plainly incensed by the Technician organizers' zeal and overreaction to the game's actual and symbolic significance.