Few places in Hanover are open at 2:30 a.m. Even fewer are buzzing with excitement -- people shouting, phones ringing, computer keys clattering.
Welcome to the offices of The Dartmouth, the oldest College newspaper in America.
In the fast-paced world of journalism, many of the best and brightest once covered the ins and outs of the country's most selective institutions of higher learning.
And Dartmouth is no exception. Alumni include Peter Pritchard, the editor in chief of USA Today; David Shribman, the Washington Bureau Chief of The Boston Globe; David Boldt, the editorial page editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer; Deborah Sontag, Jacques Steinberg, David Rosenbaum, Christopher Wren, Tim Golden, and Vincent Canby of The New York Times -- to name just a few.
The only daily news publication at the College, The D is essential for anyone who wants to know what's happening on campus and around town.
But it is more than just a news sheet. The D (few people call it by its full name) is the College's journalism school. None of the Ivy League schools offer undergraduate programs in journalism, and at Dartmouth there are only two regularly offered courses even remotely related to the news trade. (Environmental Journalism in the environmental studies department and Non-Fiction Writing in the English department).
Any real reporter will tell you, nothing taught in the classroom can compare to practical, on-the-job training.
The Dartmouth is also one of the few student organizations that welcomes freshmen staff members immediately. Freshmen reporters cover some of the most important news on campus and bylines in The D can make anyone famous overnight.
Though there are other "news" publications on campus, all of these are devoted to a certain political ideology or special interest group. Only The Dartmouth deals with straight, hard news five days a week and only The Dartmouth is taken seriously enough to shake the pillars of the administration.
Over the past year, The D has carried stories of glory, controversy and tragedy. When the Big Green won its third Ivy League football championship in a row, the celebration was captured on the front page.
When a faculty committee issued a confidential report recommending the closing of the College's education department, The Dartmouth broke the story and an outraged campus responded day after day on the editorial page. And when a student, who had suffered from leukemia, died early this summer, The D had the whole story -- not just the facts, but the human touch as well -- the woman's talents and her accomplishments.
The D also undertakes longer, in-depth projects, such as a six-part series on College President James Freedman that ran last term.
This spring, when controversy swirled around student government elections, The D was all over the story. The student who won the election came under a barrage of allegations of campaign improprieties. Investigative reporting by a team of D reporters showed the allegations of campaign overspending were true, forcing the resignation of the president-elect.
Bill Moyers, a renowned broadcast journalist who gave the keynote address at graduation this June, opened his speech talking about The Dartmouth, which he had been receiving by mail.
"I was intrigued to read that you had a crisis up here this spring in student government," he said. "An absentee presidency, no one in charge, chaos in high places -- for a while I thought I was reading The Washington Post!"
Considering Dartmouth's size and remote location -- two hours away from the nearest major city -- the College has a disproportionate amount of news coverage in the national press.
D reporters get experience covering many stories on the College which appear the next day in The New York Times and The Boston Globe. And staff members regularly do internships at major newspapers and wire services across the country.
In the politically lucrative state of New Hampshire, D reporters come face to face with some of the most important people in the country, including Bill Clinton, Jerry Brown, Paul Tsongas and Pat Buchanan.
The Dartmouth is a member of the Associated Press and a computer-hookup to the wire service provides news from around the globe to appear every day on the world and nation page for students who don't have time to read any other paper. Big stories at Dartmouth are also sent out across the AP wire and picked up by other newspapers.
When news happens away from Hanover, D reporters are there, sending back dispatches from Manchester, Boston, New York City, Washington D.C. or wherever there are Dartmouth-relevant happenings underway.
The newspaper also makes use of the College's extensive foreign study and language study abroad programs. Recent D stories were datelined in Rome, Italy and Lyon, France. With Dartmouth students constantly traveling on five continents, The D is one of the only college newspapers that can boast of a foreign staff.
The Dartmouth also produces the Freshman Issue which you are reading right now and has been mailed to all the members of your class. And, as the '97s begin to make a mark on campus, The D will be there to cover it -- whether it is because some of you are arrested for rushing the field or become famous in student politics. The D is still a small-town paper, and you can expect to see your name in print.
All this is possible because The D is an independent student-owned and operated business. The Dartmouth Inc., headed by a board of nine students, owns the paper and oversees the $250,000 year-round operation.
All money is generated by advertising revenue and the newspaper gets no funding from the College. Administrators have no control over the newspaper's content.
Indeed the administration and the newspaper have often faced-off on issues. The editorial board has attacked College officials for injustice and has offered praise and encouragement for success. College administrators look to The D to get a feel for student reactions to campus issues. Many times things common in student life remain unknown to administrators until The D lets them know what's going on.
More than 50 students make up The D's staff, ranging from the circulation department, which is awake at 6 a.m. making sure the newspaper is delivered, to the top editors who are awake until 3 a.m. seeing the paper go to press.
Members of the business staff -- advertising executives and sales staff -- are paid employees who get professional experience in advertising sales, design and newspaper budget management.
There is even a paid student computer systems manager to keep the newspaper's extensive network running smoothly. The newspaper is produced entirely with desktop publishing on Macintosh computers. A new addition to the College's computer services this year was the development of an on-line database of back issues of The D.
No other campus organization or activity provides an equally in-depth familiarity with the people and places that make up Dartmouth and the Upper Valley area. And no other organization offers the excitement of daily news reporting.
Each fall the newspaper holds an open house for new students who wish to join the ranks of the Ivy League media elite. Founded in 1799, The Dartmouth is the oldest college newspaper in America: check it out.
