The Daily Illini

In January 2003, The Daily Illini printed a letter in its opinion section titled "Jews Manipulate America."[15] A large amount of criticism followed soon after, calling into question the paper's editorial policy.[16][17] The editors responded by defending their right to publish it. Critics noted that the publishing of this letter was not surprising to them after The Daily Illini's history of publishing other articles that appeared to be anti-Semitic.[18] Previous letters published in The Daily Illini have accused Israel of being guilty of genocide and another compared the Jews to Nazis.[18] Moreover, while The Daily Illini apologized when it published a photo thought to be demeaning to black students, it refused to apologize for publishing a letter claiming that Jews manipulate America.[18]

In December 2003, the paper published an article by Miriam Sobh called "Stop Turning a Blind Eye" [19] that contained a quote attributed to Ariel Sharon that was fabricated. (See Alleged Ouze Merham interview of Ariel Sharon.[20]) The author later gave a full apology for using the fabricated quote.[20] Despite the controversy that occurred from printing the falsely attributed quote the first time, The Daily Illini printed it a second time on November 19, 2004, in another article.[21]

The DI also published an anti-semitic comic strip on November 5, 2004, strip of I Hate Pam.[22] The paper acknowledged in a later editorial that the strip mocked Jews.[22] The comic was suspended for approximately four weeks.[22]

The newspaper's former editor-in-chief Acton Gorton and opinions editor Chuck Prochaska made a controversial decision in February 2006 to print the cartoons from the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy that had previously been printed in Europe and had led to protests around the world and a few instances of violent rioting by offended Muslims. Gorton's column that accompanied the cartoons[23] was cited to support the first view. Prochaska and Gorton were also criticized by fellow editors in a later editorial[24] for not following protocol in previously discussing their printing, though it was revealed later that some of the staff did know about it in the hours prior to printing. A firestorm of letters and calls from all over the country and the world came into the Daily Illini expressing both support and outrage. Gorton and Prochaska were suspended with pay for two weeks to investigate whether proper procedures were followed. As of March 14, 2006, Gorton was terminated from the Daily Illini. Prochaska was offered the opportunity to return to his position but refused.

The Daily Illini editorials were halted on September 22, 2006, after the September 20, 2006 editorial on the Midnight Madness basketball event[25] was found to contain misinformation and misinterpretation.[26] The paper resumed publishing editorials on October 9, 2006 with an editorial explaining the changes to the way editorials will be researched and published.[27] However, even with the new guidelines, on November 29, 2006, the newspaper printed an editorial[28] calling Representative Charles B. Rangel a Republican when describing his draft bill. Rangel is a Democrat.[29]

On March 9, 2010 The Daily Illini published a guide to salaries on the Urbana–Champaign campus of the University of Illinois. The information was received through an Illinois Freedom of Information Act request. The online database receives the highest traffic on the site since they started tracking online traffic.