It was December 1905, and a pair of students at Trinity College wanted to start a newspaper, but they didn’t have the money. So Tom Stokes and U.N. Hoffman—1907 graduates of the school that would become Duke—turned to the two literary societies on campus and convinced them to fund a newspaper.
About two weeks later, The Trinity Chronicle published its first issue. Since then, more than just the name has changed.
The Chronicle now boasts a $1.3 million annual operating budget, an incorporated firm with a board of directors and no official ties to the University that spawned it. And what used to be a gossip sheet with pages full of faculty happenings and beauty pageant winners has become a forum for community discussion, University administrators and former staff members said.
“You get chills looking at all the old front pages,” said Ann Pelham, Trinity ’74, chair of the Duke Student Publishing Company Board of Directors and editor of the 69th volume of The Chronicle. “It’s just amazing that over so much time the paper has managed to continue and be of high quality, making sure the campus is informed and that debate is not in a vacuum.”
This weekend The Chronicle will celebrate its 100th birthday with parties and panels and plans for the future. Roughly 150 Chronicle alumni will descend upon campus to rehash old memories of late nights in suite 301 of the Flowers Building, where students have produced The Chronicle for several decades.
The editorial content is generated by a core group of about 20 undergraduates who spend as much as 80 hours a week writing, editing and producing the paper. A professional staff of advertising and business personnel provide some consistency to the paper’s structure. Since becoming independent of the University in 1993, the paper has functioned as a hybrid of a student group and a professional organization.
Constant leadership change, however, has occasionally led to inconsistencies of quality, University officials said. Nonetheless, the newspaper has been a crucial part of campus culture throughout its history as both a community forum and a vehicle for education.
“While there are times we might gnash our teeth over the way The Chronicle handles a particular story, I think there’s a general recognition that this is a part of the learning process and there are times to be supportive,” said John Burness, senior vice president for public affairs and government relations. “It serves the role any good newspaper does in the community—which is providing a forum for discussion of the issues the community faces.”
Even as daily production plows ahead, Chronicle administration recognizes that long-term plans for the paper must be developed. The Board of Directors, comprised of alumni and several community members, is trying to determine its role in planning for the publication’s future.
“We’re just stewards. We’re just on the sidelines trying to make sure that there’s enough money to put the paper out,” Pelham said. “I don’t think we know what happens 10 years from now. I think it’s hard for the students on the ground to plan long-term while putting the newspaper out.”
She added that The Chronicle does need to think ahead in order to keep pace with the way information flows. Several discussions this weekend will hopefully set the stage for The Chronicle’s long-term planning.
Many students now do the crossword puzzle before they read the newspaper’s content, but junior Karen Hauptman, the current editor, said The Chronicle still has an important role to play in educating its readership.
“If we’re doing our job right, then everyone who’s reading the paper is finding out something he didn’t know,” she said, noting that most University announcements are now made through other avenues. “We’re no longer just telling students what the administration said or just telling the administration what students said. There is value in seeing everything in one place at one time.”
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