The Daily Cardinal

From Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core
(Redirected from Daily Cardinal)
Jump to: navigation, search
The Daily Cardinal
250px
Daily Cardinal newspaper box featuring Fall 2015 Welcome Back issue
Type Daily newspaper
Format Tabloid
Owner(s) The Daily Cardinal Media Corporation
Founded 1892
Political alignment Moderate, leaning Liberal
Headquarters Madison, WI, U.S.
Website www.dailycardinal.com

The Daily Cardinal is a student newspaper that serves the University of Wisconsin–Madison community. The sixth oldest daily student newspaper in the country,[1] it began publishing on Monday, April 4, 1892.[2] The newspaper is financially and editorially independent of the university. James Dayton is the newspaper's current editor-in-chief.

The Cardinal's motto, printed at the bottom of every front page and taken from an 1894 declaration by the university's board of regents, is "...the great state University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found."

Circulation

The Daily Cardinal is published Monday through Thursday during the academic year in a tabloid print format and maintains a website hosted by Capital Newspapers. The print press run of 10,000 is distributed throughout the campus community. Nearly 200 undergraduate and graduate student volunteers and employees work at the paper. Its daily sections include News, Opinion, Arts and Sports, and its weekly sections are Features, Life & Style and Science.

Awards

In 2001, 2002, 2005, 2006 and 2013 the Cardinal was the recipient of the Society of Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence award for best daily college newspaper of the year in Region 6 (Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin).[3][4][5][6]

Since 2000, the Cardinal has won 61 awards from the SPJ and Associated Collegiate Press, 55 regional and 6 national.

History

The beginning of sifting and winnowing: 1892-1932

The Daily Cardinal was founded by Monroe, Wisconsin natives William Wesley Young, the University of Wisconsin–Madison's first journalism student, and William Saucerman to be a rival to the monthly student paper Aegis. Four hundred free copies of the paper were made available to Wisconsin students on April 4, 1892. For the first month of production, Young rode his horse down State Street to the offices of the Madison Democrat, which printed the Cardinal. The newspaper's name was decided by a vote of university students, "Cardinal" representing one of the school colors.

During the early years of the paper, the founder of the university's journalism school, Willard G. Bleyer, was a reporter and editor as an undergraduate. The experience was formative in his views on the teaching of journalism.

While against World War I at its outset, the Cardinal developed favorable attitudes toward the war, especially following the Nov. 11, 1918, armistice. The Cardinal did not initially support the Second World War either, but later added special military sections to the paper to help coordinate the war effort.

Making an impression: 1932-1960

During the Great Depression the Cardinal first earned its reputation for radicalism. Disagreeing with a policy of mandatory military training for male undergraduates to prepare for the impending World War II and running a letter to the editor signed by Junior Women discussing free love led U.S. Senate nominee John B. Chapple to declare that the Cardinal was controlled by "Reds, Atheists and free love advocates".[citation needed] The UW Board of Regents revoked the Cardinal’s title as "official University newspaper" following this discourse and threatened to close the paper down until a compromise added a faculty member and a regent to the Cardinal board.

In 1940, the Cardinal moved out of its office east of Memorial Union to a building on University Avenue, on the land where Vilas Communication Hall sits today. In 1956, the Cardinal board donated the land to the university in an agreement stipulating that the Cardinal would enjoy rent-free tenancy in the new building. The Cardinal's offices remain in Vilas Hall today.

In 1942, Cardinal founder Young returned to edit the paper for a day. The New York Times wrote on the occasion, "Despite annual changes in student staffs, a few college newspapers in the country have acquired a definite character. One of these is the Daily Cardinal of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. The Cardinal is proud of its liberal tradition. Because it fights cleanly and with a sense of responsibility, its youthful passion for righteousness does not burn less brightly."

A radical reputation: 1960-1988

During the 1960s, the Cardinal developed a national reputation for its vehement left-wing politics, [7] strongly protesting the Vietnam War and supporting Civil Rights in its editorials. In 1969, a group of conservative UW students, frustrated by the Cardinal’s unrelenting liberalism, founded The Badger Herald as a right-wing alternative. UW-Madison is one of few American universities with competing daily news publications, though much of the competition has shifted online as the Cardinal now only publishes a print edition Monday through Thursday and the Herald comes out on news stands just once a week.[8][9]

The 1970s saw the Cardinal maintain its strong issue advocacy, but opinion began to shift to more campus, rather than national, angles. In the last half of the decade, the paper continually attacked the university for its holdings in corporations that participated in apartheid in South Africa.

In 1987 the Cardinal survived a hostile takeover attempt by the Herald when then-president of the Daily Cardinal Board of Directors David Atkins conspired with Herald Publisher Richard Ausman to hire Herald staffers for Cardinal leadership positions and eventually merge the papers.[10] The same year, it became free, and has remained so until this day.[11]

Strife and shutdown: 1988-1995

In the beginning of the difficult stretch for the Cardinal, in 1988 the university announced it would shut down the paper’s presses, then located in Vilas Hall. Fortunately for the Cardinal, the university decided to sell the presses to UW–Extension, which remained the Cardinal’s printer for the next five years. Today, the Cardinal is printed at Capital Newspapers.

In 1995, the Cardinal was forced to stop printing due to financial issues, suffering a seven-month shutdown until the necessary funds were secured to return to publication.

The Cardinal reborn: 1995-

The Cardinal returned to campus later that year with a cover depicting a cardinal rising from ashes like a phoenix. The paper repaid its remaining debts two years to the day of the shutdown.

In 2000, the Cardinal broke the story that university officials had digitally inserted a black student’s face into a photograph of white Badger football fans. The image had been used on the cover of Wisconsin’s 2001-02 undergraduate application.[12] The story received the 2001 Diversity Story of the Year award for student journalism,[13] awarded by the Associated Collegiate Press and Los Angeles Times.

Today, the Cardinal continues printing and distribution 4 days a week on the UW campus and its surrounding neighborhoods. In 2012, the Cardinal celebrated the 120th anniversary of its first publication with an alumni gathering featuring presentations by former Cardinal staffers who had gone on to win Pulitzer prizes and Emmy awards, a gala banquet at the nearby Orpheum Theater and a tribute to Anthony Shadid, who had passed away earlier in the year.[14]

Official history

The official history of The Daily Cardinal was published in January 2008 by Heritage Books.

Notable alumni

References

  1. ↑ Johnson, Kayla. "New editor ready to take charge." The Daily Cardinal, 4 May 2011. http://www.dailycardinal.com/opinion/new-editor-ready-to-take-charge-1.2220656
  2. ↑ Shapiro, Ariel. "A tradition of centuries past carries on." The Daily Cardinal, 5 November 2009. http://www.dailycardinal.com/features/a-tradition-of-centuries-past-carries-on-1.861990
  3. ↑ Society of Professional Journalists. "2001 Mark of Excellence Region 6 Winners/Finalists" http://www.spj.org/moe01r6.asp
  4. ↑ Society of Professional Journalists. "2002 Mark of Excellence Region 6 Winners/Finalists" http://www.spj.org/moe02r6.asp
  5. ↑ Society of Professional Journalists. "SPJ Announces 2005 Region 6 Mark of Excellence Award Winners." April 3, 2006. http://www.spj.org/news.asp?ref=563
  6. ↑ Society of Professional Journalists. "SPJ Announces 2006 Region 6 Mark of Excellence Award Winners." March 23, 2007. http://www.spj.org/news.asp?REF=656
  7. ↑ Lisheron, Mark. "A campus newspaper war in Wisconsin." American Journalism Review, April 1999. http://www.ajr.org/article.asp?id=3307
  8. ↑ Becker, Abby. "New printing model, same standard of excellence." The Daily Cardinal, 30 Jan 2014. http://host.madison.com/daily-cardinal/opinion/new-printing-model-same-standard-of-excellence/article_8380219e-8982-11e3-a442-001a4bcf887a.html
  9. ↑ Golshan, Tara. "I'm graduating with a degree in the next generation The Badger Herald." The Badger Herald, 7 May 2015. https://badgerherald.com/opinion/2015/05/07/im-graduating-with-a-degree-in-the-next-generation-the-badger-herald/
  10. ↑ Worthington, Rogers. "Tussle between college papers is not just academic." Chicago Tribune, 19 March 1987. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1987-03-19/news/8701210685_1_student-headline-city-editor
  11. ↑ Hantschel, Allison. It Doesn’t End With Us: The Story of the Daily Cardinal. How a College Newspaper’s Fight for Freedom Changed Its University, Challenged Journalism, and Influenced Hundred of Lives. Westminster, MD: Heritage Books, 2007. ISBN 0-7884-4447-6
  12. ↑ [1]
  13. ↑ Associated Collegiate Press. "2001 ACP Story of the Year" http://www.studentpress.org/acp/winners/story01.html
  14. ↑ Bauter, Alison. "'Daily Cardinal' alumni celebrate 120 years, pay tribute to Anthony Shadid. Isthmus, 30 April 2012. http://www.isthmus.com/news/news/daily-cardinal-alumni-celebrate-120-years-pay-tribute-to-anthony-shadid/
  15. ↑ The Daily Cardinal Alumni Association. "DCAA Award Winners." 1999-2005. http://dailycardinal.net/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=2

Further reading

  • Hantschel, Allison. It Doesn’t End With Us: The Story of the Daily Cardinal. How a College Newspaper’s Fight for Freedom Changed Its University, Challenged Journalism, and Influenced Hundred of Lives. Westminster, MD: Heritage Books, 2007. ISBN 0-7884-4447-6

External links

Retrieved from "https://infogalactic.com/w/index.php?title=The_Daily_Cardinal&oldid=2737113"