The Badger Herald

Infobox_Newspaper
name = The Badger Herald


type = Daily newspaper
format = Broadsheet
foundation = 1969
political = Moderate, formerly Conservative
headquarters = Madison, WI, U.S.
owners = Independent
editor = Changes annually, currently Tom Schalmo
website = [http://badgerherald.com/ badgerherald.com]

"The Badger Herald" is one of America's first independent daily student newspapers. It serves the University of Wisconsin–Madison community. The paper is published Monday through Friday during the academic year. It is available at newsstands across campus and is also published on the Web. The print circulation is 16,000. The Badger Herald, Inc., is a nonprofit corporation run entirely by University of Wisconsin–Madison students and funded strictly by advertising revenue. The staff consists of more than 100, about half of whom are salaried employees. The office is located off-campus at 326 W. Gorham St., less than one block from State Street. The paper is printed by Capital Newspapers, Inc., home of the "Wisconsin State Journal" and "The Capital Times".

History

"The Badger Herald" was founded in 1969 by a group of four students seeking a conservative alternative to the UW-Madison's primary student newspaper, The Daily Cardinal, which editorialized against the Vietnam War and had close ties to leaders of the radical campus protest movement. Anti-war activists had become overtly and exceedingly violent, and their efforts culminated in the detonation of a truck bomb outside the University's Army Math Research Center on August 24th, 1970, damaging several campus buildings including Sterling Hall and the old University Hospital, injuring several, and killing a post doc physics researcher, Robert Fassnacht. The Daily Cardinal editorially supported the bombers, Leo Burt, brothers Karleton Armstrong and Dwight Armstrong, and David Fine. The later three were later apprehended and convicted of murder.

After several months of fundraising, scrounging for desks and typewriters, and renting a walkup office 2 blocks from the University's central Bascom Hill at at 538 State St., the first issue of "The Badger Herald" was published on Sept. 10, 1969. In response to bomb threats against the office, the first staffers installed wire mesh on the windows and let it be known that they were sleeping at the office so that a firebombing would be tantamount to murder.

In the late-1970s, the "Herald" moved to 550 State St. When the "Herald" moved to its present-day offices at 326 W. Gorham St. in 1998, the editors kept much of the furniture, including the original desks and homemade light board.

Founding editor Pat Korten received financial support for the new paper from nationally known conservative writer, William F. Buckley, after it ran into financial trouble in 1971. Buckley raised money for the struggling paper by giving a fundraising dinner speech in Madison, with proceeds going to the paper.

During the 1970s the paper managed to remain solvent through advertising sales to businesses on the populous UW campus and consistently refused offers of a subsidy from the University in order to maintain its editorial independence.

During that era, the paper maintained a consistently conservative editorial policy on a campus that was considered so liberal that it was called, "The Berkeley of the Midwest." The paper received regional attention and sparked a series of campus protests in 1976 and 1978 by publishing controversial opinion pieces titled, "Mao, Death of a Tyrant," "Top Commie Bites Dust," "Can Africans Rule Themselves?" and "Confronting the Lavendar Menace or: The Case Against Homosexuality."

In 1977, the "Badger Herald" used its editorial muscle to help members of the Inter-Fraternity Council and other moderate to conservative students, electorally wrest control of the Wisconsin Student Association, the campus student government, from left-wing campus radicals. This effectively signaled the end of 60's-style campus radicalism at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The Herald was the first newspaper in the State of Wisconsin to publish the work of Pulitzer Prize winning editorial cartoonist, Jeff MacNelly, having signed the exclusive area rights from his syndicate in 1976.

"The Badger Herald" was first published as a weekly newspaper, went twice weekly in 1974 and went daily in 1987. Early on it established itself as a serious presence on campus, and by the early 1990s, overtook the much-older "Daily Cardinal," in circulation and advertising revenue. The once upstart conservative alternative campus newspaper, had, by 1992, become the dominant newspaper on the 40,000 student University of Wisconsin-Madison campus.

Today, despite having become the UW's dominant newspaperFact|date=April 2008, the "Badger Herald" is still perceived as more conservative than the once dominant "Daily Cardinal," which was founded in 1892.

In 2001 "The Badger Herald" published an advertisement by controversial conservative writer David Horowitz that argued against reparations for slavery. Weathering several protests and disruptions in circulation, The Herald refused to apologize for publishing the advertisement. After a flurry of national news coverage, the paper's status as an independent student newspaper stood firm.

"The Herald’s" position was lauded in the "Wall Street Journal", "USA Today" and the "Wisconsin State Journal". "The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel" editorialized that the "Herald" is “living proof that the Constitution is a living document.”

On February 13, 2006 the "The Badger Herald's" editorial board published a controversial cartoon that depicted Muhammad. In the accompanying column titled "Sacred Images, Sacred Rights", the board said it considered the cartoon "offensive" but also deemed it "clearly newsworthy" and a "vehicle of facilitation in the grand marketplace of ideas." Recently in May 2008, a controversial cartoon of David Horowitz originally published in the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee school newspaper, the UW-M Post, that depicted the conservative writer who also is of Jewish-American heritage, with a hooked nose, was republished on the front page of "The Badger Herald". The coverage of this article, that was accompanied by the controversial cartoon, followed the pattern of "The Herald's" decision to reprint images considered taboo.

Comics

In 1976, when numerous newspapers nationally including the Madison "Capital Times" declined to run a series of Gary Trudeau's "Doonesbury" comic strips for their controversial content, "The Badger Herald" negotiated with the syndicate and was the only paper regionally to print the cartoons.

"The Badger Herald" today publishes a comics page five days per week. Favorite comics among students include "White Bread & Toast", "Yourmometer" and the long-running "Rocky the Herald Comics Raccoon" about a witty, whiskey-swilling roustabout known for his sarcastic observations. It is locally written and produced by Herald staffers.

Other student publications

"The Daily Cardinal" publishes each weekday during the academic year and has a circulation of 10,000, making the University of Wisconsin-Madison one of the only universities in the United States with two daily student newspapers. The campus also hosts two bimonthly newspapers: "The Mendota Beacon", founded in February 2005, and "The Madison Observer", founded in April 2003. In addition, the campus was the birthplace of satirical weekly "The Onion" and the conservative journal, "Insight and Outlook," which was a precursor to the "Badger Herald."

External links

* [http://www.badgerherald.com/ "The Badger Herald" website]
* [http://badgerherald.com/about/history.php History of the "Badger Herald"]