The Cornell Daily Sun

The Cornell Daily Sun

Type	Daily newspaper
Format	Tabloid
Owner	Independent
Editor	Benjamin D. Gitlin 129th Editorial Board
Founded	September 16, 1880
Headquarters	Ithaca, New York
ISSN	1095-8169
Official website	cornellsun.com

The Cornell Daily Sun is an independent daily newspaper published in Ithaca, New York by students at Cornell University. It is the oldest independent college daily in the United States.

The Sun features original coverage of the university and its environs as well as stories from the Associated Press and UWIRE. It prints on weekdays when the university is open for academic instruction as a tabloid-sized daily. In addition to these regular issues, The Sun publishes a graduation issue and a freshman issue, which is mailed to incoming Cornell freshmen before their first semester. The paper is free on campus and online.

The Sun is staffed entirely by Cornell students, aside from a few full-time production and business positions, and is fully independent of the university. It operates out of its own building in downtown Ithaca. The Sun is the 13th best college newspaper in the United States, according to The Princeton Review.^[1]

History

The Cornell Sun was founded in 1880 by William Ballard Hoyt to challenge Cornell's original and leading publication, the weekly Cornell Era (founded 1868). The Era shortly became a literary journal, and was eventually consigned to oblivion. The Sun boasted in its opening paragraph: "We have no indulgence to ask, no favors to beg." The paper incorporated and changed to daily frequency, earning its longstanding boast "Ithaca's Only Morning Newspaper." In 1912 it added a second, "first collegiate member of the Associated Press."

Following the shift of its main competitor, the Ithaca Journal, from evening to morning daily publication in 1996, The Sun changed its traditional front page slogan which, after several iterations, now states "Independent Since 1880." This period also marked a shift in The Sun's content from national to local and university-related stories.

In January 2003, the Cornell Daily Sun Alumni Association purchased the former Elks Lodge in downtown Ithaca, erected 1916. Led by Stanley Chess, the founding president of the Association, John Schroeder '74, and Gary L. Rubin '72, the alumni completely renovated the building over the next several months. Now called the Cornell Daily Sun Building, it has housed the paper's offices since June 2003 and is coincidentally located next door to the Ithaca Journal's offices.

In the fall semester of 2004, The Sun turned free and started featuring full-color front and back pages as part of a redesign in its layout. These moves were partially effected to boost circulation in response to Cornell's Student Assembly's decision to provide The New York Times and USA Today on campus for free to all undergraduate Cornell students.

On September 17, 2005, more than 370 Sun alumni and guests gathered in Manhattan to celebrate The Sun's 125th anniversary. Speakers included Kurt Vonnegut '43, Carl Leubsdorf '59, Sam Roberts '68, Jay Branegan '73, S. Miller Harris '44, and Jeremy Schaap '91. The emcee was Stan Chess '69. A 130th anniversary dinner was held on September 25, 2010.

Alumni

See also: List of Cornell University alumni

The Cornell Daily Sun Alumni Association, comprising former editors, managers and staff of the Cornell Daily Sun, exists to further journalism by Cornell University students.

The Sun claims at least nine Pulitzer Prize winners and boasts a number of other prominent alumni. They include:

• David Folkenflik, Editor-in-Chief (1990-91), reporter for NPR
• Frank E. Gannett, founder of the Gannett Company; coincidentally, Gannett now owns and operates The Ithaca Journal
• Marc Lacey, Mexico City correspondent, The New York Times
• Eric Lichtblau, Washington bureau reporter, The New York Times
• Deborah Solomon, magazine columnist, The New York Times
• Carl P. Leubsdorf, The Dallas Morning News columnist
• Oscar G. Mayer, Jr., Business Manager (1933-1934), executive of the Oscar Mayer meat company
• Dick Schaap, Editor-in-Chief (1954-1955), noted sports writer and broadcaster
• Jeremy Schaap, Sports Editor (1990-1991), ESPN contributor and son of Dick Schaap
• Kurt Vonnegut, Associate Editor (1942-1943), novelist and satirist
• E. B. White, Editor-in-Chief (1920-1921), columnist and novelist
• Allison Danzig, sportswriter for The New York Times, 1923 through 1968, author, who was co-editor with E.B. White

See also

• List of college newspapers

References

1. ^ "Princeton Review Best College Newspapers: 2011 List". College Media Matters. http://collegemediamatters.com/2011/08/03/princeton-review-best-college-newspapers-2011-list/. 

• "From the Hill: Housing News: A Home for the Sun," Cornell Magazine, Vol. 105 No. 5, March/April 2003.
• Bishop, Morris. A History of Cornell. New York, New York: Cornell University Press, 1962. ISBN 0-8014-0036-8
• Margulis, Daniel ed. A Century at Cornell: Published to Commemorate the Hundredth Anniversary of the Cornell Daily Sun. Ithaca, New York: Cornell Daily Sun, 1980. ISBN 0-938304-00-3

External links

• Cornell Daily Sun official site
• Cornell Daily Sun Alumni Association
• Cornell University Library, Cornell Daily Sun Digitization Project
• Sun Editorial Board