The Tartan

"The Tartan", formerly known as "The Carnegie Tartan", is the original student newspaper of Carnegie Mellon University. Publishing since 1906, it is one of Carnegie Mellon's largest and oldest student organizations. It currently has over 170 student members, who contribute on a weekly basis. It is funded by advertisements and the university's student activities fee.

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There are two sections in "The Tartan". One is a standard broadsheet news section and the other is an entertainment, arts, and living tabloid section called Pillbox.

News

The News section consists of the front page and two or three other pages of timely, campus-focused content covering events, accomplishments and disappointments of the student body. The section's semi-regular features include news analysis, personality profiles, investigative reporting, and trend reporting. Its regular features include columns from the student body president and the Publisher (formerly "executive officer") of "The Tartan", featured photographs of campus events, and a weekly dose of topical statistics.

Forum

The Forum section is where Carnegie Mellon's campus discusses current issues. It contains letters to the editor, a semi-regular column by the newspaper's ombudsman, op-ed pieces, a "Presidential Perspectives" column by the university's Student Body President, and articles from the campus community. It also contains one or more editorial pieces that are the general opinion of the Editorial Staff.

cience & Technology

This section is relatively new to the newspaper. It covers the school's many achievements in the fields of robotics, computer science, biology, physics, and other fields, as well as lectures and events with a technology or science slant. As Carnegie Mellon is a research university, "The Tartan's" "SciTech" section holds a special significance to the newspaper's total university coverage. Envisioned in 2000, the SciTech section originally ran on alternate weeks with a Business section. However, in 2003 the Business section was discontinued and SciTech became a weekly section of the newspaper.

ports

This section covers the weekly games, home and away, of Carnegie Mellon's sports teams, including intramural ones. Its features include analysis of professional sports leagues, commentaries, and a schedule of upcoming games and events.

Pillbox

Pillbox is "The Tartan" 's arts, living, and entertainment section. As an insert accompanying the broadsheet, it has its own comics editor in addition to a section editor. Pillbox covers the latest restaurant openings in the Oakland, Shadyside, and Squirrel Hill neighborhoods, on-campus concerts, dramatic performances, and organizations. It also contains music and movie reviews, and larger feature articles that encompass a greater scope.

The second section of the paper has undergone several iterations, especially in the past 15 years. In the 80s the subsections included Features and Diversions. Features contained information on student living, campus life, and city life. Diversions focused specifically on Arts and Entertainment. At this time the second section was also a broadsheet.

In 2000, as part of the newspaper's redesign several changes were made. Since the lines between Features and Diversions were already blurred, they were merged into an Arts and Living Section. SciTech and Business made up another subsection. Eventually Business was discontinued, and Arts and Living became a tabloid section, Pillbox.

Comics

There is a comics section in Pillbox, with many student-drawn comics and a few syndicated comics.

taff

The staff of "The Tartan" comprises two major levels, the Editorial Staff and regular staff.

Editorial Staff

The Editorial Staff constitutes the core of "The Tartan"'s contributors, making decisions about the articles, photographs, and art pieces submitted by the regular staff. The Editorial Staff is divided into editors and managers. Editors deal directly with the assigning, production, and processing of content, while managers coordinate their staffs to provide a service to the publication.

As a general rule, people are voted into the Editorial Staff by their peers.

Editorial Board

The Editorial Board is a subgroup of the Editorial Staff, charged with formulating and communicating the newspaper's formal opinion every week. Each issue contains two editorials, marked "From the Editorial Board," both of which are written by Editorial Board members and vetted by the entire Board before publication. The Board is appointed by the Editor-in-Chief and approved by a majority vote of the Editorial Staff.

Regular Staff

When a student first joins the newspaper as a writer, he or she is considered a junior staff writer. After contributing to six issues or having two published articles in each of two separate sections, the student becomes a full staff writer. After a year of regular contribution, the staff writer is eligible to become a senior staff writer (a position which confers no tangible benefits, but senior staff do get their names in the masthead each week).

Recent Events

A Brief Independence: 2002–2004

In 2002, "The Tartan"'s leadership decided to leave the student funding process of Carnegie Mellon University. Brad Grantz, Editor-in-Chief at the time, believed that the newspaper needed to be independent so its mission could grow. Advertising revenues were running high during the dot.com boom and overly optimistic projections led the paper to think it could be self-financing. Breaking away was also an attempt to remove the ethical burden of reporting on the same entities that allocated funds to the newspaper. The move eventually led to a massive accumulation of debt - over $100,000 by 2004. "The Tartan" rejoined the student funding process in the spring of 2004.

The "Natrat": April 2004

"The Tartan" has traditionally published an annual joke issue called the "Natrat" ("Tartan" spelled backwards) on April Fool's Day. In the 2004 edition, a [http://pittsburgh.indymedia.org/news/2004/04/13318.php comic] containing racist and sexist material, along with other items deemed offensive by much of the community, was published. The ensuing media attention and campus outcry [ [http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04095/295991.stm CMU slur brings apology ] ] [ [http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04098/297374.stm Furor over First Amendment: CMU editors assailed over spoof paper ] ] forced the editor-in-chief and the managing editor to resign. The artist of the offending cartoon was also dismissed from the newspaper. [ [http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04254/376625.stm Editors escape discipline at CMU ] ] The organization chose an outsider as its new editor-in-chief, electing Mark Egerman, a well-known radical activist and alumni of Carnegie Mellon University. Egerman had graduated a year earlier but was given a scholarship to return to campus to lead the organization. A controversial pick at the time, Egerman had never worked for the newspaper although his various high-profile actions had made him a routine subject of coverage. Citing commitments to issues of racial and sex equality as well as a belief that campus newspapers still served a vital role in a public sphere. Egerman attempted to rebuild the entire organization, firing everyone involved with the Natrat. [ [http://www.thetartan.org/2004/9/7/news/executiveprivilege Executive Privilege - Mark Egerman's first editorial] ]

Following the leadership change, The Tartan's plans for rebuilding faced a number of challenges. During his short tenure, Egerman managed to face seriously problems with both David Horowitz (see below) and New Black Panther Party leader Malik Shabazz. The paper emerged from this transition period stronger than ever, winning a college pacemaker award during Egerman's tenure. [ [http://www.studentpress.org/acp/winners/npm05.html 2005 Associated Collegiate Press Newspaper Pacemaker Winners] ] The Tartan ran its first subsequent April Fool's edition in Spring, 2006. Its title was changed to "The Tartan: Annual Scandal Issue", a name for the parody "Tartan" edition that was last used in 1933.

Ad Refusal: November 2004

In November 2004, "The Tartan"'s executive officer, Mark Egerman, declined to run an advertisement submitted by conservative writer David Horowitz. Horowitz has gained publicity by placing or attempting to place similar ads in a number of student newspapers across the country. In previous years the ads insinuated Holocaust denials. In this case the ad was for Horowitz's book "Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left." Egerman chose not only to censor the advertisement, but to publish his own statement on why he made that decision in the exact same space. While a small number of university newspapers declined to run the advertisement, none took as direct an approach as "The Tartan".

This action caused "The Tartan" to once again gain media attention, this time drawing fire from conservatives who viewed the paper as having a liberal agenda. [ [http://www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org/archive/2005/January2005/CMUnewspaperrejectsadtribunereview010505.htm CMU Newspaper Rejected Group's Ad - Press Coverage - News - Students For Academic Freedom ] ] [http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/news/politics/10507192.htm] Egerman was singled out by the "Pittsburgh Tribune-Review" for criticism. [ [http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/opinion/archive/s_287650.html CMU's 'diversity' - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review ] ] He turned around and accused the "Pittsburgh Tribune-Review" of violating journalistic ethics by defending Horowitz, whose chief funder Richard Mellon Scaife is the publisher of the "Tribune-Review". [ [http://www.thetartan.org/2005/1/17/forum/journalisticintegrityseeminglyoptional The Tartan Online : Journalistic integrity seemingly optional ] ] Not only did the "Tribune-Review" fail to disclose any conflict of interest, but selectively edited Egerman's letter to the editor and removed all references to Richard Mellon Scaife. This began a long dispute between Egerman and the Pittsburgh Tribune Review which resulted in the firing of one member of the Tribune-Review Editorial Board. Egerman insisted that this action was not enough and demanded to see financial statements, maintaining that the newspaper was losing hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in order to subsidize Scaife's extreme political views.

An impromptu debate between Horowitz and Egerman occurred in January 2005, when Horowitz was interviewed by Carnegie Mellon's student-run radio station WRCT. Invited to speak by one of the station's conservative political shows, Horowitz attacked Egerman, describing him as a "vulgar Marxist" for being so concerned with the source of Horowitz's funding. Egerman called in to defend himself and refused to apologize or back down from his decision. Given the chance to direct his concerns directly to the editor, Horowitz claimed that the Tartan opposed free speech and asked for an apology. Egerman vehemently insisted that freedom of speech protected the independence of a small newspaper to make decisions that it thought was best for the newspaper. The debate ended with Egerman flatly telling Horowitz that if he wanted to publish an inflammatory ad, he should feel free to do so in his own publication, FrontPage Magazine, instead of bullying around a small university newspaper with limited resources that had sought to explain its editorial decisions in the fairest way possible. The 20 minute debate was briefly placed online by WRCT until Horowitz's attorneys demanded it be removed.

References

External links

* [http://www.thetartan.org "The Tartan"]
* [http://www.scheduleman.org "ScheduleMan"]