The Martlet

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The Martlet is a weekly student newspaper at the University of Victoria (UVic) in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. There are over a dozen employees on the payroll, but significant work is done by student volunteers (writing, taking photos, copy editing). The Martlet is funded partially by student fees, and partially by advertisements. As of 2007, each student pays $3.75 per semester to the Martlet. The newspaper is distributed freely around the UVic campus and various locations around greater Victoria each Thursday during the school year, and on a monthly basis in the summer. The Martlet is a member of the Canadian University Press.

History

The Martlet was founded when UVic was Victoria College, and the original name was the Microscope. The paper takes its name from a heraldic bird with no feet. Three martlet birds appear on the crest of McGill University, and the University of Victoria grew out of the McGill University College of British Columbia. For a brief period in the early 1970s, the Martlet was renamed the 'Cougar City Gazette', a reflection of the defiance of the paper towards the administration.

In 1971, the Martlet was partly responsible for bringing about the resignation of the university's president, Bruce J. Partridge, when it erroneously reported that he had obtained his law degree from a correspondence school under investigation as a "degree mill." In 2001, the Martlet Publishing Society issued an apology to Partridge for publishing articles that made reference to these events in an anniversary book. A 2003 Martlet article by Patrick White stated that, though Partridge legitimately acquired his degree by correspondence, rumours about Partridge's qualifications spread throughout the university. He resigned in November 1971. An article with a statement from Partridge can be found in an archived 1971 issue of the University of British Columbia's paper the Ubyssey.

Until 2004 the Martlet had an "advertising boycott list", which has been dropped to allow for an assessment of each individual advertisement. The Martlet has received criticism for running advertisements that some readers have interpreted as sexist, notably in fall 2004 when they ran ads for "Canada's Search for the Coors Light Maxim Girl."


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