Why so late?

In an effort to move up production of the send-home issue, this year we struck a compromise between last year’s late July publication and planning to print early in the month next year. But the print-date agreement between editorial and advertising resulted in this issue’s staggered finish. Editorial content was actually finished July 2, launched online July 8 and advertising content was added by July 15 for the July 16 publication date.

 

The Chronicle typically publishes once a week during the first summer session, when top editors take classes and work on the paper, and the first few weeks of the second session are usually devoted to the mammoth send-home issue (this year more than 100 pages).

 

Like last year, editors were required to take fewer summer classes as part of the Chronicle Leadership Assistance Program than in years past. In order to give them more flexibility for July and August, we chose to bump up our send-home production, which means stories were put to bed July 2.

 

But because of supplements and ad agreements, the advertising office was only able to move its production by a week, to July 16.

 

Next year, however, production will be much more seamless, and The Chronicle will be printed and sent home nearly the moment the paper (and editors) go to bed.

 

 

The Chronicle’s independence

I have a question.  How much control does Duke really have over what is published in the Chronicle or on the website.  Does Duke ever suggests that the Chronicle print an article or ask that the Chronicle not to print an article?  Does Duke give the Chronicle money? 
 
Best regards,
Tom

 

Hi Tom,

The Chronicle prides itself on its editorial freedom. The daily newspaper went independent of The University in 1993, when the organization incorporated as The Duke Student Publishing Company, a non-profit. Duke has no control over anything The Chronicle publishes–in print or online. Like any source, Duke administrators might make requests, but these are weighed no more carefully than any others. Duke does not provide money to The Chronicle; funding is generated through advertising and subscriptions.

Thanks,

Chelsea Allison

Welcome.

I only wish I had a mailbag brimming with letters, with queries, with leads. Instead I’ve got a sticky-note collage framing my loaded e-mail inbox, scraps of paper and labeled, colored archived reminders of news we’ve found fitting. But as our staff pours itself into each paper, coaxing each word of copy into columns, I don’t want these words to become static.

That’s where you come in, dear reader.

Drum off a response. Question an article, a column, some word choice. Question us. I open my electronic mailbag for you (and from you, really), because, as former Chronicle editor Seyward Darby wrote, a good paper should be more than just words on a page. Besides, we’ve often got a mouthful—let us hear what you’ve got to say.

—Chelsea Allison