The Chronicle

About Us

To reach the Editorial Office (newsroom) at 301 Flowers Building, call 919-684-2663 or fax 919-684-4696.
To reach the Business Office at 103 West Union Building, call 919-684-3811.
To reach the Advertising Office at 101 West Union Building call 919-684-3811 or fax 919-668-1247.
To inquire about subscriptions, call the Advertising Office at 919-684-3811.

History

The Chronicle, the independent daily newspaper at Duke University, is actually older than the University itself. The first issue of The Trinity Chronicle was published Dec. 19, 1905. Trinity College became Duke University in 1924, and the newspaper continued to cover campus news and the world around it, evolving from a weekly newspaper to a bi-weekly and then a tri-weekly in the middle of a century and finally to a weekday daily in 1968.

With a circulation of about 15,000 and distribution throughout the University, Health System and parts of Durham, The Chronicle has a print readership of about 30,000. The Chronicle Online, established in 1995, gets an average of more than 70,000 hits every day.

Today, we are completely independent of the University and funded entirely by advertising revenue. The Duke Student Publishing Company, formed when the organization incorporated as a non-profit in 1993, has expanded to include a student web portal, a newspaper at the School of Law and a biannual housing guide, among other publications.

Since Duke has no journalism major or school, The Chronicle is the best experience available for students interested in pursuing careers in journalism. To learn more about how to become a part of The Chronicle's staff, read below.

Work for The Chronicle

The Chronicle's editorial department has a staff of more than 100 student volunteers, and we're always looking for more. The business and advertising departments include both professional staff members and paid work-study students. (For more information about those positions, contact Nalini Akolekar (nalini@duke.edu) or Barbara Starbuck (starbuck@duke.edu).

Students have the opportunity to work in any of The Chronicle's editorial departments: University (campus news), City & State (local coverage), Health & Science, Editorials, Sports, Photography, Graphics/Design, Recess (our weekly arts and entertainment magazine), or Towerview (our bi-monthly news and perspectives magazine).

Information and training sessions are held at the beginning of the fall semester and then periodically over the course of the year. After you attend that first training session, you're ready to take on your first story. The assigning editors will work with you as you learn the ropes in whichever departments you want to try out. You'll be placed on the general assignment reporters list as a contributing reporter. Over the course of the semester, you'll be encouraged to attend more specific and extensive training sessions -- they're not too long and cover some of the more detailed aspects of reporting and writing in greater depth.

You're eligible for promotion to a staff writer position within a specific department as soon as you've written six stories in at least three different departments and you've attended three of the extended training sessions. (You don't have to move up if you don't want to -- the time commitment is as high or as low as you want it to be.)

Staff writers then have the opportunity to become associate editors, at which point they are full-fledged members of the editorial staff. That designation includes the additional responsibilities of regular editing shifts and news coverage, as well as the eligibility to attend editorial board meetings and vote in editor elections.

For more information about how to become a part of The Chronicle, including times of upcoming training sessions, contact Chelsea Allison (editor@chronicle.duke.edu).