As America’s oldest college newspaper and an independent daily, The Dartmouth presents students the opportunity to grow throughout their time in Hanover. Whether interviewing College President Phil Hanlon on major policy initiatives or selling ads to national clients, our staff members develop skills that will benefit them throughout their personal and professional lives.
Inside The D: the Editorial Side
When you arrive on campus, visit our offices on the second floor of Robinson Hall. You will find reporters typing up stories, business staffers selling advertisements to local and national clients, photographers uploading their best shots and editors stationed in the office to help out.
Consider joining our staff — our applications for both the editorial and business sections will be sent out during the first week of the term. Whatever interests you, there’s a place for you at The Dartmouth.
The news section is the heartbeat of the paper, providing updates on everything Dartmouth. In recent months, the news pages have addressed topics including class and money at Dartmouth (to which we devoted an entire issue), student protests and College President Phil Hanlon’s announcement of the full “Moving Dartmouth Forward” policy initiative, which included a hard alcohol ban and an overhaul of residential life.
The D’s opinion section allows staff columnists and community members debate fervently about campus-wide, and even relevant national, issues. Recent opinion pieces have addressed divestment, the role of the sophomore summer term and methods of student protest. Along with our opinion section, our comics section provides a platform for artists to critique Dartmouth culture and news. (Check out the “Badly Drawn Girl” series D alumna Mindy Kaling ’01 drew as a staff member for a noteworthy example.)
Our sports section gives students and alumni daily updates on the latest Big Green athletics developments, covering both club and varsity sports. Sports news is usually located on the back page of the newspaper and also offers one-on-ones and profiles with many of the Big Green athletes. Each Monday, the section recaps the weekend’s games and looks forward in the Sports Weekly insert.
The arts and entertainment section covers the latest performances and exhibitions at the Hopkins Center and the Hood Museum, as well as weekly film reviews and profiles of the College’s musicians, actors and artists.
The Mirror, our weekly magazine published on Fridays, examines campus culture through both long-form features and lighter, more humorous stories. The Mirror also features regular senior columnists, who look at anything from campus culture to existential angst to the Real Housewives of New York. This year, we looked at love and sex on campus, students’ grappling with the visa process after graduation and life as a campus celebrity.
Our blog, Dartbeat, was launched four years ago and is now our fastest-growing section. With its own, newly-redesigned website, Dartbeat offers quick takes on campus life. Check out its website for playlists, snapshots from our archives and dining hall hacks.
The D’s photographers give our readers a visual take on daily news stories, while our newer multi-media section brings videos to accompany the online newspaper content, as well as stand-alone features. Our design team creates dynamic illustrations and helpful info-graphics to accompany and complement our stories. Check out their work for the cover and centerfolds of The Mirror and Sports Weeky.
Inside The D: The Business Side
The Dartmouth is a private student-run company that is completely independent of the college. We cover our own operating costs, manage a large budget, build personal relationships with clients, and create real value every day. Working for the business staff of The D is your best chance to get practical, real-world business experience working for the largest student-run company in Hanover.
The advertising section is our profit center. Business associates in the section serve as account managers for the paper’s clients and provide consulting, marketing, and sales services for local businesses as well as major national corporations. Staff members work collaboratively to brainstorm revenue strategies to help to ensure The Dartmouth’s long-term fiscal growth.
Members of the finance and strategy staff oversee the paper’s financial health and direction as a corporation. In doing so, they develop and implement plans to diversify the D’s sources of revenue, analyze the paper’s advertisement sales, produce the paper’s quarterly financial report, study trends in the larger print media industry, and advise the paper’s senior leadership on new opportunities and major decisions. In serving as the paper’s internal consulting team, previous projects have included exploring ways of enhancing and monetizing the paper’s digital content, conducting an internal analysis of the paper’s organizational structure and workflow procedure, as well as recommending new products for the paper to expand.
The marketing and operations staff oversees management of the paper’s brand and image as well as its printing and internal operations.The staff focuses on marketing the paper’s brand by overseeing its community and alumni outreach, social media presence, relations with other newspapers and philanthropic efforts. Members also oversee the paper’s staff recruitment process, social and alumni events, circulation and subscription services and merchandise sales.
The technology staff oversees the online presence of the paper, and executes projects to provide The Dartmouth’s content to more members of the Dartmouth and Hanover community. The technology staff also works heavily with the rest of the business staff to implement new technologies and find ways to increase readership, generate new revenue opportunities and optimize the day-to-day business. Staff members will be trained in the use of programming languages for websites, design tools and business computing software.
The design team works with clients and fellow staff members to design online and print advertisements, promotion material and apparel. While no experience is necessary, staffers will be trained in Photoshop and Adobe InDesign.
Our History
The Dartmouth Gazette, the publication’s earliest name, was first published on Aug. 27, 1799, and was published irregularly during the following years. Its staff included prominent authors such as Daniel Webster. Around 1875, The Dartmouth became a weekly newspaper with advertisements. In 1920, the editors voted to adopt the current daily format.
Though The D has changed over the centuries, the organization has maintained an unwavering commitment for ethical journalism and unbiased coverage of the Dartmouth community.
The D is entirely student-run, from content planning and storyboarding to production, managing relationships with clients and copy editing. The Dartmouth, Inc. is incorporated in the state of New Hampshire as a nonprofit organization and leases its Robinson Hall offices from the College, which has no editorial or financial stake in the paper.
Beyond Hanover
The D is committed to developing future leaders and thinkers. Our Vox fund, which draws from the support of our dedicated alumni, provides stipends to staff members interested in media-related careers.
In recent years, our staff members have interned at The New York Times, CNN, MSNBC, the New Republic, the Wall Street Journal, Time, the Atlantic, the New York Daily News and Hearst Newspapers. We also have alumni working at many of these organizations.
Some of The D’s high-profile alumni include Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Paul Gigot ’77, currently the editorial page editor and vice president of the Wall Street Journal; Pulitzer Prize winner Dan Fagin ’85, who sits on our Board of Proprietors; CNN chief Washington correspondent and “The Lead” anchor Jake Tapper ’91; New York Times reporter David Herszenhorn ’94; former Times education reporter Jacques Steinberg ’88; Fox News host and former “Roll Call” executive editor Morton Kondracke ’60; Robert Wood Johnson foundation senior policy advisor and former Health Affairs editor-in-chief Susan Dentzer ’77; International Herald Tribune European editor Anna Bagamery ’78; Pulitzer Prize-winning screenwriter and playwright Frank Gilroy ’50; and legendary screenwriter Bud Schulberg ’36.
While Hanover is rural, you shouldn’t underestimate the audience your work will receive if you become a member of The D’s staff. Our print edition reaches students and staff in Hanover, and thousands of others visit our website daily from countries all over the world.
Whenever the College enters the national media spotlight, other outlets look to The D for the inside scoop. Presidential candidates also routinely stop in Hanover while on the campaign trail, giving our staff members the chance to meet elected officials and prominent journalists.
As you anticipate coming to campus, visit our website at thedartmouth.com for regular updates, follow us on Twitter @thedartmouth and like our page on Facebook. If you have questions about the editorial or business staffs, feel free to blitz either editor@thedartmouth.com or publisher@thedartmouth.com. Be on the lookout for our hiring blitzes over orientation. We can’t wait to meet you in just a few weeks.
Katie McKay ’16 is the editor-in-chief and Justin Levine ’16 is the publisher of The Dartmouth.
