DTH celebrates its 112th anniversary

Fifty years ago, The Daily Tar Heel was a curious hybrid of political firecracker and socialite tabloid. Former editor Charles Kuralt’s explosive editorials advocating integration of the University were juxtaposed with dance announcements, faux-glamorous cigarette ads and portraits of debutantes.

Since its first publication Feb. 23, 1893, the DTH has weathered censorship threats, litigation battles and editorial changes — even its name has changed. Even today, on the 112th anniversary of The Daily Tar Heel’s publication, the newspaper retains the spirit and spunk that once threatened its existence.

“The Daily Tar Heel is such a great institution, such a huge part of life at Carolina — it’s been a really great source of news and a high quality paper for so long,” said Jennifer Taylor, editor of the DTH’s Centennial Edition in 1993.

In 1893, the Athletic Association agreed to sponsor a weekly tabloid to fill the news void on campus. A founding staff of seven pulled together the first edition of The Tar Heel.

It would go on to demonstrate a staying power of which past publications hadn’t proved capable.

By 1920, the paper was publishing twice a week; by 1929, it had increased its publication to three times a week. Under the guidance of Walter Spearman in 1929, the paper began publishing six times weekly, earning the title of the first college daily in the South.

When World War II imposed paper rationing and threatened editorial freedom, the once-daily newspaper reverted to a weekly tabloid for the duration of the war. It published as a weekly again during the Korean War in 1951. The paper started its current schedule of five publications a week in 1972.

While the paper’s mission to serve “the University community and its students” has never changed, its focus and scope certainly have.

In 1919, editor Thomas Wolfe brought the newspaper roaring onto the political scene when he began endorsing political candidates. But the paper’s assertion of these views soon brought trouble in terms of its financial backing.

Once financed by the Athletic Association and later by subscription fees, the DTH began receiving student fees in 1923 with the creation of the Publications Board, founded to control all campus publications. This allowed the paper the financial security to begin publishing as a daily, but it soon became clear that financial dependence on the University threatened editorial freedom.

In 1955, Kuralt’s support of reforms, most notably integration, considered too liberal prompted the state legislature to found a six-person committee to “investigate quality and circulation problems at the DTH.” This scrutiny from the legislature and subsequent constriction of editorial freedom prompted a push for financial independence within the DTH that would last the next 40 years.

The need for unbiased news coverage surfaced again when the College Republicans brought a lawsuit against the paper in 1972 and another in 1982. The suits alleged that students should not be forced to pay fees to support a newspaper to which they were ideologically opposed. Both suits were dismissed, but not before the newspaper incurred more than $8,000 in legal fines, a sum raised through donations from the student body.

In 1990, the DTH began accepting smaller and smaller allocations of student fees each year, and by 1993, it was operating solely through advertising revenue. The Daily Tar Heel, although affiliated with the University, became a completely independent publication.

“That was the most important change at the DTH, when the paper became financially independent, because that really gave us the editorial freedom to be a watchdog paper,” said Dan Thigpen, managing editor of the DTH in 2003-04.

This independence has afforded the paper a greater freedom to criticize the government, the students and the administration.

“This really showed how much potential we had to be an independent voice on campus, to really nurture debate on campus but do it as freely as we would like,” Thigpen said.

“And the paper has been able to preserve its autonomy while still being accountable to the University and the community and the readers. And there is still very much a sense of public ownership without there being a sense of University ownership.”

And as much as the newspaper’s political role has changed in more than a century, so has its function and appearance. Before the turn of the 20th century, the newspaper focused largely on sporting events and admonished attendance and good behavior of its readers.

By the 1980s, it had adopted a more news-focused tone and a traditional layout and size.

“The Daily Tar Heel has seen the changes that have gone on in all newspapers — it’s more serious, more reader-friendly, better news coverage,” Taylor said. “The paper sees itself as a real newspaper. It is a real newspaper.”

Some things never change, though. Even the earliest issues make reference to a daily budget meeting to lay out the next day’s paper, to late-night newsroom antics, and to the surprising journalistic gem that emerges amid the daily grind of turning out a college newspaper.

“The biggest role the paper’s played is that it’s been there for all the big days at the University and all the national championships and the contested student body president elections,” said Nate Denny, editorial page editor in 2003-04.

“The best thing about (the DTH) now is that it’s continuing a very long tradition of being the students’ voice on the editorial side and providing a service to students on the news side.”

Thigpen attributes the paper’s longevity to its staff.

“I think one of the things that keeps the DTH alive is that it has a rotating cast of characters — it’s a work in progress every year, it has a different touch every year.

“The DTH is always evolving. It truly is a working document.”

Contact the Features Editor at features@unc.edu.