The Daily Californian

The Daily Californian (or Daily Cal) is an independent, student-run newspaper that serves the University of California, Berkeley campus and its surrounding community. It publishes a print edition four days a week on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday during the academic year, and twice a week during the summer. Content is published in the online edition every day. Established in 1871, The Daily Californian is one of the oldest newspapers on the West Coast, and one of the oldest college newspapers in the United States. Current circulation is about 10,000^[1] for a campus of roughly 35,000 students.

History

The Daily Californian became independent from UC Berkeley in 1971 after the campus administration fired three senior editors over an editorial that encouraged readers to "take back" People's Park. Both sides came to an agreement, and The Daily Californian gained financial and editorial independence from the university and is now published by an independent corporation called the Independent Berkeley Students Publishing Company, Inc. The paper licenses its name from the Regents of the University of California.

In the fall of 1971, The Daily Californian moved to a second floor office on the corner of Telegraph Avenue and Channing Way in Berkeley. The Daily Californian moved to two other offices, one on Shattuck Square and on Dwight Way. These moves, while necessary for the financial success of the newspaper, began to erode the student foundation that ran the newspaper. Forced to move due to the planned demolition of Eshleman Hall (and its sixth floor office), the Daily Cal moved editorial and business operations to a new office at 2483 Hearst Ave. The move to the new location was made possible in part by a $2.25 million donation from Daily Cal alumna Liz Simons through the Heising-Simons Foundation, which allowed the university to purchase the building for the paper.

On November 24, 1982, three days after the November 20th Big Game (now known for The Play), early morning readers of the Daily Cal were chagrined to find in the headline of the front page: "NCAA Awards Big Game to Stanford."^[2] Hundreds of copies of the Daily Cal with this fake headline had been strewn about campus in the wee hours. This was in fact a hoax perpetrated by aggrieved Stanford fans.

A Daily Cal rack on the UC Berkeley campus

A newspaper run completely by students worked very well, but financial and management problems dampened the first decade of The Daily Californian's independence. In the early 1980s, The Daily Californian was forced to take on loans, including one from UC Berkeley's student government, the Associated Students of the University of California (ASUC).

In the early 1990s, hard times and a series of financial mismanagements forced the newspaper to only publish three days a week, which made national news. With the great support of then Chancellor Chang-Lin Tien, The Daily Californian secured a new office in the 6th floor of Eshleman Hall on the south side of campus. This office space had also housed the newspaper from 1965 to 1971. It was during the early 1990s that The Daily Californian also began to tap its growing group of proud and successful alumni. The Daily Californian Alumni Association was founded.

The Daily Californian has a history of publishing spirited editorials, and in some cases editions containing controversial editorials have been subjected to newspaper theft. In 2002, Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates agreed to pay restitution after admitting to having thrown away a thousand copies of The Daily Californian after it endorsed his opponent, then-Mayor Shirley Dean. In May 2003, nearly 5,000 papers were stolen by students protesting coverage of the arrest of a Cal football player. The largest act of theft took place in November 1996 when the paper's senior editorial board endorsed Proposition 209.^[3] Nearly 23,000 papers were stolen on Election Day 1996,^[4] and in the following days copies of the paper were tossed off the balcony of the newspaper's office and burned in effigy.

On October 16, 2006, the Daily Cal launched its first blog, The Daily Clog. The Clog is a student-life blog that accumulates various tidbits about Berkeley and college life. It focuses on the UC campus, the city of Berkeley and Berkeley's online community. That year, the Daily Cal also recorded its first podcast and began text polling. Since then, The Daily Californian has added eight new blogs on topics ranging from Travel to an Editors' Blog.

On August 25, 2008, the Daily Cal announced that it would not print a paper version of the newspaper on Wednesdays amidst a decline in advertising revenues and higher newspaper costs. However, it will have an online version of the paper on Wednesdays.^[5]

The Daily Californian is an affiliate of UWIRE,^[6] which distributes and promotes its content to their network.

The Daily Californian Alumni Association

More than 400 former The Daily Californian staffers have joined The Daily Californian Alumni Association (DCAA) since its resurrection in August 1996. A unit of The Daily Californian Education Foundation, the DCAA exists to bring alumni of the newspaper together as well as to provide mentorship and financial support to the current student staff. The DCAA is one of the largest and most active alumni associations of any college newspaper. A chartered club of the California Alumni Association, the Daily Californian Alumni Association holds regular reunions and receptions across the country. Alumni are established and leading journalists in such news organizations as The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, People magazine, The Arizona Republic, The San Francisco Chronicle, Sports Illustrated, NBC News, USA Today and The Washington Post.

Membership is open to all former staff members of The Daily Californian or student publications office staff (pre 1971). Reunions are held every October during homecoming weekend on the Berkeley campus and offer a chance for alums to mingle and trade stories with students on the current staff.

Notable alumni

• Max Boot (1992) - Conservative columnist and author
• David Brock (1983) - Founder of Media Matters for America
• Warrington Colescott (1941–42) - painter and printmaker
• David Corvo (1972) - Television news producer and former broadcast journalist; current senior executive producer of Dateline NBC
• John R. Emshwiller (1972) - Senior national correspondent for The Wall Street Journal
• Ron Fimrite (1949) - humorist, historian, author and sportswriter, best known for his 34-year career as a journalist for Sports Illustrated^[7]
• Marguerite Higgins (1941) - Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent
• Karl Kasten (1938) - Award-winning Abstract Expressionist artist
• David Lazarus (1983) - business and consumer columnist for the Los Angeles Times; previously, award-winning columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle^[8]
• T. Christian Miller (1992) - Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter, author, and war correspondent working for ProPublica^[9]
• Johnathan Rodgers (1967) - CEO/President of TV One, former President of Discovery Networks and reporter for Sports Illustrated and Newsweek^[10][11]
• Michael Silver (1988) - NFL columnist for NFL.com; previously, award-winning NFL writer for Sports Illustrated, authoring the magazine's Super Bowl game story for 12 straight years from 1994 through 2006; co-author of books by Jerry Rice, Dennis Rodman, Kurt Warner, and Natalie Coughlin^[12][13]
• Henry Weinstein (1966) - Award-winning Los Angeles Times reporter^[14]
• Jann Wenner (1966) - Founder of Rolling Stone

See also

• List of college newspapers

References

External links

• The Daily Californian
• Advertising statistics
• Move to new headquarters
• Stolen copies
• No more Wednesday edition
• The Daily Clog
• The Daily Californian Alumni Association

University of California, Berkeley
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Related articles	Alumni History Caltopia Free Speech Movement Occupy the Farm Faculty and staff Graduate Theological Union
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