Unlike the majority of student-run organizations at Duke, The Chronicle is unaffiliated with the University. Rather, the Duke community’s daily source of news is the product of Duke Student Publishing Company, a $1.3 million non-profit, incorporated firm, whose president is current Chronicle Editor Karen Hauptman.
The decision for The Chronicle to become an independent company in 1993 was the final result of a series of steps to sever its financial and influential ties with the University.
Prior to 1993, a number of Chronicle editors worried the newspaper was too closely linked to the University and thus Duke could institute severe repercussions if inaccuracies were published. Past editors said University administrators had intervened inappropriately when outsiders interpreted the content of The Chronicle to represent the University’s beliefs.
In the 1960s, the publication of The Chronicle was halted mid-press for several days, and the editor was forced to resign after attempting to publish a parody of the nativity scene.
“We knew there was the threat that if we did something unpopular, there would be retribution,” said Rocky Rosen, Trinity ’88, who was editor of The Chronicle and is now the assistant managing editor for the Durham Herald-Sun.
The Chronicle began its move toward independence in 1989 when it refused Duke’s annual $100,000 subsidy and replaced the foregone funds with revenue from advertisements.
Although this early move toward incorporation set the ball rolling for the newspaper to unaffiliate with Duke in 1993, the publication of a controversial advertisement Nov. 5, 1991 brought the issue of independence to a head.
“The ad was the final straw that really pushed us with going ahead with incorporation,” said Rosen, who was an initial member of the DSPC board.
The full-page ad by Holocaust revisionist Bradley Smith, who said the Holocaust never occurred, led to a major backlash against not only The Chronicle but also the University itself. Reactions ranged from a flood of vehement letters directed at University officials to the withdrawal of financial support by some alumni.
Yet the intention of this advertisement was to exert first amendment rights, said Ann Heimberger, editor of The Chronicle in 1991.
“It is not a newspaper’s job to determine what the public should not be exposed to... or to determine what sort of negative events an article... may generate,” she wrote in an “editor’s column” before the advertisement appeared in print.
The turmoil resulting from Smith’s advertisement reopened the question of what type of involvement Duke should hold within The Chronicle’s infrastructure, and editors decided that the time was ripe to become independent from the University.
“I understand the paper’s motives behind [becoming independent],” said John Burness, senior vice president for public affairs and government relations, who along with then-President Keith Brodie also advocated The Chronicle’s right to publish the advertisement in 1991.
Nonetheless, severing its legal ties with the University has not fully prevented The Chronicle from dealing with issues of journalistic freedom.
Gregg Pessin, editor in 2000 and Trinity ’01, noted that The Chronicle faced attempted intervention by University administration despite its independent status. He said Duke’s actions interfered with the publication’s goal of making decisions entirely independently of University interests.
Pessin was apprehensive about University repercussions when The Chronicle published a controversial reparations ad by David Horowitz in 2001, as Duke considered pulling its advertisements from The Chronicle. Such an action would have compromised the financing and thus the publication of The Chronicle, Pessin said.
“The Chronicle is one of the few remaining open forms of academic discussion and freedom at Duke,” Pessin said. “[Complete] independence? I think it’s a continuing process.”
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