What do you get when you mix hard work, late nights, caffeine, WordPerfect, breadsticks, pencils, notepads and almost 100 students?
You get The Dartmouth, America's Oldest College Newspaper.
Five mornings a week, The Dartmouth is distributed to students' Hinman mail boxes at the Hopkins Center, full of news about campus events, Dartmouth sports and the outside world.
"The D," as The Dartmouth is commonly referred to on campus, is the College's only daily, independent source of news and is essential for anyone who wants to know what's going on.
Completely student run, The Dartmouth has no ties to the College. Students write, edit and assign the stories that run on the pages, layout articles and set the style that governs the newspaper, and solicit and design the advertisements that finance the corporation.
Whatever your interest, The Dartmouth offers hands-on experience that will help you at Dartmouth and beyond.
In the last year, D writers have held internships at The Washington Post, CNN, the Chronicle of Higher Education, Hearst newspapers -- even as press secretary for a U.S. representative.
Recent graduates have gone on to work at The New York Times and The Washington Post, among other papers.
And The Dartmouth has connections in high places, including Peter Pritchard, editor-in-chief of USA Today, Trustee David Schribman, the Washington Bureau chief of The Boston Globe, David Boldt, Jacques Steinberg of the Philadelphia Inquirer, David Rosenbaum and Christopher Wren of The New York Times -- just to name a handful.
Despite Dartmouth's remote location, the College manages to make the national news quite often.
This past winter, during the New Hampshire presidential primaries, D reporters joined national journalists in Hanover covering the candidates' visits. Student reporters interviewed a number of candidates face-to-face including former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, Pat Buchanan and Senator Phil Gramm, R-Texas.
With national elections approaching, this Fall term promises to be even more exciting.
In addition to covering national events, The D also keeps students up to date on campus events.
When the Big Green men's basketball team ended Penn's 48-game conference win streak in January, when a group of freshmen women spearheaded a movement to start their own sorority, when a computer glitch held up student election results for a week and when an incident of racist graffiti sparked a debate about First Amendment rights, The D covered it.
The Dartmouth also takes time to cover issues in depth. Besides periodically printing news analyses and "in-focus" feature stories each term, the newspaper also runs a series of articles regarding a current issue.
In the winter, a series focused on the primaries and in the spring The Dartmouth conducted an extensive examination of the College admissions process.
Just as important, The Dartmouth dedicates a page each day to happenings in sports, in the arts and in the national news.
The sports page keeps students up to date with Dartmouth's teams and individual athletes as well as national sporting news.
The Arts &Entertainment page runs reviews of movies and plays showing at Dartmouth and in the area as well as running occasional features about musical performances, art exhibitions, local bands, new releases and individual students.
One of the most well-read pages of The D is its commentary page, where some of the best debates on campus take place.
When students have something to say, they say it in The Dartmouth. In addition to taking submissions from the Dartmouth community, the editorials page boasts its own staff of columnists as well as some great cartoonists.
It takes almost 100 students to put out a newspaper of this size daily.
From 7 a.m., when student deliverers arrive, until 3 a.m., when the final editor leaves the next day, students work in The D's offices in Robinson Hall to put out a single issue.
The Dartmouth is an independent, student-owned and operated business. The Dartmouth Inc. is headed by a board of nine students who oversee the year-round corporation's revenues of almost $300,000.
All income is generated by subscriptions and advertising revenue -- the newspaper receives no funding from the College.
Most importantly, administrators have no control over the newspaper's content. In fact, the newspaper and the administration have often disagreed on issues. The Dartmouth's editorial board has objected to acts of injustice by the College and also praised its successes.
For administrators and College officials, The Dartmouth offers a portrayal of students' reactions to campus issues.
The Dartmouth highly values its staff of freshmen and unlike other campus organizations, first-year students can jump right in and make an impact, without any previous experience. Each year The Dartmouth attracts a bright bunch of reporters, many of whom stay on to become editors their junior year.
Besides always being on the lookout for freshmen reporters and photographers, The Dartmouth seeks first-year advertising representatives -- paid employees who can earn great wages while garnering professional experience in advertising, sales design and newspaper management that is great for any resume.
The newspaper also offers paid positions to students who manage The D's computer system and edit its on-line issues.
No other organization on campus offers the type of hands-on, real-world, resume-building experience The D does.
Come to our open houses -- held 8 p.m. on Wednesday Sept. 25 and Thursday Sept. 26 in the D offices found on the second floor of Robinson Hall -- and get to know Dartmouth from the inside out.
