The Daily Tar Heel
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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| Type | Campus daily newspaper |
| Format | Broadsheet |
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| Owner | DTH Publishing Corp. |
| Publisher | DTH Publishing Corp. |
| Editor | Joseph R. Schwartz |
| Founded | 1893 |
| Headquarters | Chapel Hill, North Carolina, U.S. |
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| Website: www.dailytarheel.com | |
The Daily Tar Heel (commonly referred to as the DTH) is the independent student newspaper of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It was founded on February 23, 1893, and became a daily newspaper in 1929. The paper places a focus on University news and sports, but it also includes heavy coverage of Orange County and North Carolina. It is published five days a week during the school year and weekly during the University's two summer-school sessions.
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[edit] History
[edit] Early history
The newspaper was first published on February 23, 1893, and was originally a four-page weekly tabloid called The Tar Heel. Funded by the campus Athletic Association, it placed much of its emphasis on campus sports and Greek life.
By 1920, the paper's size had increased to 6 pages, and editor Thomas Wolfe moved to a twice-a-week format. In 1923, it came out from under the auspices of the Athletic Association and became governed by the Student Publications Union Board, which at the time was in charge of all campus publications. Circulation quadrupled in less than a year, and by 1929, the paper published every day except Monday and changed its name to The Daily Tar Heel.
During World War II, publication was scaled back to three times a week.
[edit] Post-World War II
In 1946, the Daily Tar Heel returned to daily publication with the goal of becoming, in the words of student editors, "the greatest college newspaper in the world." Page counts were increased thanks to secure campus funding, and the newspaper continued to grow as the University modernized in the 1950s and 1960s.
During the 1970s, student leaders tried to cut the DTH's funding. After a lengthy court battle, the newspaper won certain concessions: (a) It would, every year, receive 16 percent of student activity fees, and (b) It was allowed to form a publishing board outside the auspices of student government, provided that student leaders were granted a number of seats on that board. However, the DTH also was required to have its budget approved each year by Student Congress, which caused further tension.
Seeking to avoid continued interference from student government -- and to settle a nagging tax question with the University -- the paper incorporated in 1989 as an independent, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. In 1993, it voluntarily stopped taking all money from student activity fees and became, for all intents and purposes, an independent publication with 100 percent control over all editorial and business decisions. That allowed the DTH to begin its current process of allowing a committee of staffers and community members to select the next editor; previously, the position had been filled in campuswide elections. The first editor selection occurred in 1994.
Also in 1994, the DTH became one of the first student papers to publish online.
[edit] The DTH today
Today, the Daily Tar Heel circulates 20,000 free copies throughout campus and in the surrounding community -- Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Durham. Its estimated readership of 39,000 makes it the largest community newspaper in Orange County. Revenues from advertising are self-generated.
The paper employs six full-time, non-editorial professionals, about 75 paid part-time students, and more than 100 student volunteer writers. The student editor has full control over the editorial content of the paper. Business matters are overseen by a full-time, professional general manager; a board of directors serves as publisher and has final say over matters such as the newspaper's budget.
The paper focuses on campus news (including all varsity sports), but it also features a city desk that covers Orange County as well as a state and national desk that deals with items of interest to the campus community.
The current editor is UNC senior Joseph R. Schwartz. He will serve until May 2007.
[edit] Accolades and awards
The DTH is frequently recognized as one of the best college newspapers in the country. The Associated Collegiate Press, for example, regularly rewards it with National Pacemaker Awards for excellence in college journalism; in 2005, the newspaper won Pacemakers for its 2004-05 print and online editions. The paper also has won numerous Mark of Excellence awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, and its advertising and business staff is often recognized as the best in the country by College Newspaper Business and Advertising Managers, Inc.
The DTH staff also wins awards in competitions against professional newspapers in North Carolina. Since 2001, the newspaper has won more than a half-dozen awards from the North Carolina Press Association for its photography, newswriting and design; it has also won more than two dozen first-place advertising awards in its division, which comprises paid dailies with circulations between 15,000 and 34,999. Notably, twice in the last five years, the newspaper has placed third in the state in its coverage of higher education -- ahead of professional newspapers in education-rich areas such as Charlotte and Greensboro.
[edit] Controversies
Like many campus publications, the Daily Tar Heel has gained a reputation for being unafraid to push buttons.
Most recently, in the 2005-06 school year, it published a column supporting the racial profiling of Arabs at airports -- a piece that began with the line, "I want all Arabs to be stripped naked and cavity-searched if they get within 100 yards of an airport." A few months later, in the midst of the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy, it published a cartoon depicting the Prophet appearing to decry both sides in the debate. Both pieces sparked loud debate on campus, with the DTH's detractors calling them disrespectful and supporters calling them legitimate expressions of opinion. The column made national headlines and ultimately led to the columnist's dismissal, while the cartoon was a popular local-news item and prompted a few dozen protesters to stage sit-ins in the DTH newsroom.
Controversy, however, is not limited to one year in the DTH's history. The famous broadcaster Charles Kuralt, who was DTH editor in 1954, wrote in his book "A Life on the Road" of being called "a pawn of the Communists" on the floor of the state legislature after the newspaper published a spoof edition critical of Sen. Joseph McCarthy. Later, in the 1970s and 1980s, student editors used the paper's now-defunct front-page quote to agitate many on campus; selections included Nietzsche's "God is dead." In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the paper's editorial board often clashed with students who sought the erection of a freestanding black cultural center on campus. And in 2001, the paper sparked protests by publishing a column by conservative commentator David Horowitz, whose argument against reparations for slavery was seen by some on campus as racist.
[edit] Notable alumni
- Cole Campbell, former St. Louis Post-Dispatch editor
- Peter Gammons, ESPN sportswriter and broadcaster
- Karen Jurgensen, former USA Today editor
- Charles Kuralt, award-winning CBS journalist and author
- Walter Spearman, long-time UNC journalism professor
- Peter Wallsten, Los Angeles Times White House correspondent
- Thomas Wolfe, novelist
- Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post columnist
- Edwin Yoder, syndicated columnist
[edit] References
- Campus newspaper continues to evolve -- DTH article on the newspaper's 113th anniversary.
- A Brief History of "The Tar Heel"
- UNC student fired for 'malpractice' in column on Arabs
- UNC's student paper is the target of a sit-in
[edit] External links
- The Daily Tar Heel -- official site
