Right now, you are holding in your hands a copy of The Dartmouth, the student newspaper of Dartmouth College.
This newspaper has one goal: we are dedicated to keeping the students, faculty and administrators informed about life at the College. Every time an important event occurs in the community, The Dartmouth should cover it. And we do.
The Dartmouth has to go to the speech by Nobel Peace Prize winner, author, and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel so the student with two midterms can still hear what Wiesel said.
The Dartmouth has to cover Dean of the College Lee Pelton's Report on the First-Year Experience extensively, because it could fundamentally change life at the College.
The Dartmouth has to cover the Student Assembly, because students have a right to know what their government is doing even if they are too busy to personally check up on the politicians.
The Dartmouth must cover the College's arts and sports events. Not everyone can go see the women's lacrosse team play in the Final Four, but everyone wants to knows how the team did.Likewise, by reviewing arts performances, The Dartmouth can get the word out to the community about a show appearing at the Hopkins Center for the Performing Arts.
Founded in 1799, The Dartmouth is America's oldest college newspaper and is the only daily newspaper at the College.The Dartmouth is completely student-owned and student-run.Although the newspaper has office space in Robinson Hall, The Dartmouth is completely financially and editorially independent of the College administration.
The Dartmouth is one of the most successful small college newspapers in the country.The Dartmouth has produced a disproportionate amount of prestigious journalists, including Peter Prichard '66, former editor in chief of USA Today; Richard Duncan '57, executive editor of Time Magazine; and David Shribman '76, who recently won a Pulitzer Prize reporting for The Boston Globe.
In the past five years, graduating editors have taken jobs with newspapers and wire services across the country, including The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times.
Unlike all other newspapers at the College, The Dartmouth is the only publication that does not have an agenda to advance or an ideological bent to it. The Dartmouth prides itself on reporting all of the facts objectively. Our goal for every story, everyday of the week, is to get all the facts and to get them straight.
Objectivity is essential to any good college newspaper. The reader must know he or she is getting the complete story from the newspaper.
On a college campus, particularly a small one like Dartmouth, the job of a newspaper becomes more complex because the staff of the newspaper is inevitably closely tied to the community on which it reports. So it is a constant struggle for writers toretain objectivity when writing a story.
Because of The Dartmouth's strong commitment to objectivity, staff members are not allowed to work for other campus publications.
The Dartmouth has a staff of more than 70 students, who are involved in all levels of the newspaper. Students report the stories, write the stories and edit them. Other students design the layout. Business-minded students sell advertisements to local and national businesses, and manage the advertising and circulation departments. Early-rising students deliver The Dartmouth to students' Hinman Boxes by 7 a.m. every morning.
The Dartmouth is one of the few student organizations on campus where freshmen can come in and make an immediate contribution. After a short training session, freshmen are assigned a story. It is not unusual for a story written by a freshman to be the lead story on any given day.
After three years on the staff, students become senior editors, making decisions about how the newspaper runs and what news to cover.
Because of its financial independence, The Dartmouth retains complete control over its editorial content.
With this freedom comes a certain responsibility to have fair and accurate reporting. A newspaper should present information in a clear and concise manner so the reader can better understand the world around him or her.A newspaper should also offer analytical pieces to its readers to help them understand the news and why it is happening.Editors should take a long look at the world around them and ask, "Why?"Then the editor should assign a reporter to go find out the answer.
Hopefully, people will learn something every time they read The Dartmouth. And what they learn will prompt them to ask more questions and learn something else.
Perhaps the most important part of the newspaper -- especially on a college campus -- is the editorials page.The editorials page should be an open forum for debate; any member of the community can submit a letter or column to The Dartmouth and we will print it.
Columnistsare an essential part of any comment page. Simply put, a good columnist is not afraid to be the first person to publicly voice his or her opinion on an issue.
A good newspaper also takes the time and space to write in-depth articles that carefully explain important issues in the community.For instance, as the 25th anniversary of coeducation approaches in 1997, The Dartmouth recently took an in-depthlook at the status of women at Dartmouth. Similarly, few things at Dartmouth that affect every student as much as the Dartmouth-Plan does. But few students truly understand the reasoning behind the D-Plan or understand the complexities involved in abolishing it.
No other campus organization can offer you the chance to meet the deans, professors and student leaders who shape your life everyday.And no other activity will allow you the opportunity to shape the lives of other people.
Each fall, The Dartmouth holds an open house for people interested in joining America's oldest college newspaper. We are always looking for new writers, editors, photographers, columnists and business staff.So if you want to spend part of the next four years in the most exciting place on campus, then stop by and check us out.
