The Johns Hopkins News-Letter
The Johns Hopkins News-Letter is the independent student newspaper of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. Published since 1896, it is one of the nation's oldest continuously published, weekly, student-run college newspapers.
| Type | Weekly newspaper |
|---|---|
| Format | Broadsheet |
| Owner(s) | Independent |
| Founded | 1896 |
| Headquarters | Baltimore, Maryland, Homewood Museum[1] |
| Website | http://www.jhunewsletter.com |
The News-Letter is published every Thursday in a full-color front and back page broadsheet format, and has two sections: an A section and a B section. Its total circulation is approximately 5,200, including the local campuses of Johns Hopkins, area colleges, and the greater Baltimore region.
Several times a year, The News-Letter distributes a magazine edition with 20- to 30-page tabloid-sized inserts, such as Best of Baltimore, Cover-Letter (introducing new students to the University), Housing Guide, Lacrosse Guide, and the Dining Guide.
The editorial and business boards consist entirely of undergraduates. Members of the editorial staff are democratically elected to one-year terms, while members of the business board are hired by the editors-in-chief. The current editors-in-chief are Rudy Malcom and Katy Wilner.
The News-Letter won an Associated Collegiate Press Newspaper Pacemaker award for four-year, non-daily college newspapers in 2015, 2013, 2008, 2005, 2003, and 1995 and was a finalist for the award in 2010, 2007, and 1997.[2]
The News-Letter is an affiliate of UWIRE,[3] which distributes and promotes its content to their network.
History
During the founding years of the university, the board of trustees of Johns Hopkins University prohibited the creation of any student publication without the board's written permission. In 1889 specifically, when talks of a News-Letter originated, several board members had their hesitations. Seven years later however, James M. Thomson 1897 and Edgeworth Smith 1898 petitioned the Academic Council to allow publication of four trial issues of a fortnightly periodical to be called The Johns Hopkins News-Letter. Its aim, at a pricey 15 cents an issue, would be to report on local events and provide a forum for students who wished to publish opinion pieces. Eventually, and reluctantly, the board acquiesced, "provided that the plan be carried out in a manner satisfactory to the President."
In October, 1967, The News-Letter moved its offices to the Gatehouse, a small neo-Italianate building located on the corner of North Charles Street and Art Museum Drive, next to the Baltimore Museum of Art. The building was originally called the Homewood lodge and marked the entrance to William Wyman's Homewood estate.[4]
The News-Letter added a public editor position in 2019. Currently, The News-Letter has seven sections: News & Features, Opinions, Sports, Science & Technology, Voices, Arts & Entertainment, and Your Weekend.
Controversy
The News-Letter retracted its coverage of a webinar by Genevieve Briand, the assistant program director of the Applied Economics master’s degree program at Hopkins. Briand argued that there was "no evidence that COVID-19 created any excess deaths." [5] A statement on November 26, 2020 published on social media noted that the article was "used to support false and dangerous inaccuracies about the impact of the pandemic."[6] A day later, The News-Letter published an explanation of the retraction and made the original article viewable as a PDF.
Notable News-Letter alumni
- Russell Baker, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and former host of Masterpiece Theatre
- J.D. Considine, music critic and former Rolling Stone writer
- Richard Ben Cramer, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 1979 for reports from the Middle East, New York Times best-selling author
- Lauren (Spencer) Deford, Senior Coordinating Producer at SportsNet New York (SNY) and NBC Universal
- Caleb Deschanel, cinematographer and father of Zooey Deschanel and Emily Deschanel
- Bruce Drake, former vice president of National Public Radio
- Galen Druke, host and producer of FiveThirtyEight podcast
- Mark Hertsgaard, independent journalist and environmental correspondent for The Nation
- Alger Hiss, U.S. State Department official accused of being a Soviet spy
- Murray Kempton, noted American journalist
- Sujata Massey, mystery writer
- Edward L. Morse, Global Head of Commodities Research at Citigroup
- Irvin B. Nathan, former Attorney General of the District of Columbia and General Counsel of the United States House of Representatives[7]
- Sidney Offit, curator of the George Polk Award
- Felix Posen, philanthropist and promoter of Humanistic Judaism
- Russ Smith, founder of the Baltimore City Paper and New York Press
- Helmut Sonnenfeldt, chairman of the Atlantic Council of the United States and a former aide to Henry Kissinger
- James M. Thomson, publisher of the New Orleans States-Item, later to become the present-day Times-Picayune
- James Rosen, Washington D.C. correspondent for Fox News
References
- Catherine Rogers Arthur, Cindy Kelly. Homewood House. p. 168.
- Chism, Rachel (14 November 2015). "Johns Hopkins student newspaper earns highest honor in college journalism". Johns Hopkins University. The Hub. Retrieved 1 March 2016.
- "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2009-02-15. Retrieved 2009-02-22.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
- "Long-forgotten histories of Homewood buildings". The Johns Hopkins News-Letter. Retrieved 2020-05-05.
- "A closer look at U.S. deaths due to COVID-19 - The Johns Hopkins News-Letter". web.archive.org. 2020-11-26. Retrieved 2020-11-27.
- "https://twitter.com/jhunewsletter/status/1332100136152035330". Twitter. Retrieved 2020-11-27. External link in
|title=(help) - http://www.dcbar.org/for_lawyers/resources/publications/washington_lawyer/march_2013/conversation_nathan.cfm