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''The Badger Herald'' is a newspaper serving the
University of Wisconsin–Madison A university () is an educational institution, institution of higher education, higher (or Tertiary education, tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. Universities ty ...
community, founded in 1969. The paper is published Monday through Friday during the academic year and once during the summer. Available at newsstands across campus and downtown
Madison, Wisconsin Madison is the county seat of Dane County and the capital city of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of the 2020 census the population was 269,840, making it the second-largest city in Wisconsin by population, after Milwaukee, and the 80th-lar ...
and published on the web, it has a print circulation of 6,000. The Badger Herald, Inc. is a nonprofit corporation run entirely by University of Wisconsin–Madison students and funded solely by advertising revenue. The Board of Directors, which operates the company, is composed of nine UW students and three non-voting advisers, including noted
First Amendment First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...
expert
Donald Downs Donald Alexander Downs (born December 2, 1948) is an American political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison known for his work on the First Amendment. Education Downs received his B.A. from Cornell University Cornell ...
and former
Republican Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...
congressional candidate John Sharpless. The staff consists of nearly 100 students. The office is located off-campus at 152 W. Johnson St. Suite 202. The paper is printed by Capital Newspapers, Inc., home of the ''
Wisconsin State Journal The ''Wisconsin State Journal'' is a daily newspaper published in Madison, Wisconsin by Lee Enterprises. The newspaper, the second largest in Wisconsin, is primarily distributed in a 19 county region in south-central Wisconsin. As of September ...
'' and ''
The Capital Times ''The Capital Times'' (or ''Cap Times'') is a digital-first newspaper published in Madison, Wisconsin by The Capital Times Company. The company also owns 50 percent of Capital Newspapers, which now does business as Madison Media Partners. The ot ...
''.


History

''The Badger Herald'' was founded in 1969 by a group of four students seeking a
conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...
alternative to the UW–Madison's primary student newspaper, ''
The Daily Cardinal ''The Daily Cardinal'' is a student newspaper that serves the University of Wisconsin–Madison community. One of the oldest student newspapers in the country, it began publishing on Monday, April 4, 1892. The newspaper is financially and editoria ...
'', which editorialized against the Vietnam War and had close ties to leaders of the radical campus protest movement. When anti-war activists detonated a truck bomb outside the University's Army Math Research Center on August 24, 1970, damaging several campus buildings and killing a post doc physics researcher, ''The Daily Cardinal'' editorially supported the bombers, saying "If Robert Fassnacht had died in Vietnam ... he would be a line in a news story – a number. And that is the reality that some of us have already died to change will struggle to change." While such attitudes were widespread on college campuses at the time, the Daily Cardinal—along with other college newspapers—helped coordinate and encourage activism against military research. The Daily Cardinal would later become more moderate in response to pressure from local media, the UW Board of Regents, staff members leaving, declining advertising revenue, and the radicalism of the 1960s and early 1970s dying down around the country. Still, ''The Badger Herald'' formed in direct response to the then-radicalism of ''The Daily Cardinal'' and the campus. After several months of fund-raising, scrounging for desks and typewriters, and renting a walk-up office two blocks from the University's Bascom Hill at 538 State Street, the first issue of ''The Badger Herald'' was published on September 10, 1969. In the late-1970s, the ''Herald'' moved to 550 State Street. When the ''Herald'' moved to its office at 326 W. Gorham Street in 1998, the editors kept much of the furniture, including the original desks and homemade light board. Their offices are currently located 152 W. Johnson St. Suite 202. Founding editor Patrick S. Korten received financial support for the new paper from nationally known conservative writer
William F. Buckley William Frank Buckley Jr. (born William Francis Buckley; November 24, 1925 – February 27, 2008) was an American public intellectual, conservative author and political commentator. In 1955, he founded ''National Review'', the magazine that stim ...
after it ran into financial trouble in 1971. Buckley raised money for the struggling paper by giving a fund-raising dinner speech in Madison, with proceeds going to the paper. It is the only speech Buckley ever gave free of charge. During the 1970s the paper remained solvent through advertising sales to businesses on the populous UW campus. The ''Herald'' has consistently refused offers of a subsidy from the university in order to maintain its editorial independence. During that era, the paper maintained a consistently conservative editorial policy - one that has since been abandoned - on a campus that was considered so liberal that it was called "The Berkeley of the Midwest". The paper received regional attention and sparked a series of campus protests in 1976 and 1978 by publishing controversial opinion pieces titled, "Mao, Death of a Tyrant", "Top Commie Bites Dust",
Can Africans Rule Themselves?
and "Confronting the Lavender Menace or: The Case Against Homosexuality". The ''Herald'' was the first newspaper in the state of Wisconsin to publish the work of
Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...
-winning editorial cartoonist,
Jeff MacNelly Jeffrey Kenneth "Jeff" MacNelly (September 17, 1947 – June 8, 2000) was an American editorial cartoonist and the creator of the comic strip ''Shoe''. After ''Shoe'' had been established in papers, MacNelly created the single-panel strip '' Plu ...
, having signed the exclusive area rights from his syndicate in 1976. ''The Badger Herald'' was first published as a weekly newspaper, went twice-weekly in 1974 and went daily in 1987. When the paper moved from weekly to daily, "its executive board calmed the editorial page's conservative voice," bringing it generally into line with the left-of-center political stance of ''The Daily Cardinal''. In 2005, the short-lived Mendota Beacon attempted to fill the void left by the Herald's leftward shift by providing a conservative voice on campus. Early on it established itself as a serious presence on campus, and by the early 1990s, overtook the much-older ''Daily Cardinal,'' in circulation and advertising revenue. By 1992, the once upstart conservative alternative campus newspaper had become the dominant newspaper on the 40,000 student University of Wisconsin–Madison campus. In 2001 ''The Badger Herald'' published an advertisement by controversial conservative writer
David Horowitz David Joel Horowitz (born January 10, 1939) is an American conservative writer. He is a founder and president of the right-wing David Horowitz Freedom Center (DHFC); editor of the Center's website ''FrontPage Magazine''; and director of Disco ...
that argued against
reparations for slavery Reparations for slavery is the application of the concept of reparations to victims of slavery and/or their descendants. There are concepts for reparations in legal philosophy and reparations in transitional justice. Reparations can take numer ...
. Weathering several protests and disruptions in circulation, the ''Herald'' refused to apologize for publishing the advertisement. After a flurry of national news coverage, the paper's status as an independent student newspaper stood firm. ''The Herald’s'' position was lauded in the ''Wall Street Journal'', ''USA Today'', and the ''Wisconsin State Journal''. ''The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel'' editorialized that the ''Herald'' is "living proof that the Constitution is a living document". On February 13, 2006 ''The Badger Herald'' editorial board published a controversial cartoon that depicted
Muhammad Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد;  570 – 8 June 632 Common Era, CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Muhammad in Islam, Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet Divine inspiration, di ...
. In the accompanying column titled "Sacred Images, Sacred Rights", the board said it considered the cartoon "offensive" but also deemed it "clearly newsworthy" and a "vehicle of facilitation in the grand marketplace of ideas". In May 2008, a controversial cartoon of
David Horowitz David Joel Horowitz (born January 10, 1939) is an American conservative writer. He is a founder and president of the right-wing David Horowitz Freedom Center (DHFC); editor of the Center's website ''FrontPage Magazine''; and director of Disco ...
, originally published in the
University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee The University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee (UW–Milwaukee, UWM, or Milwaukee) is a public urban research university in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It is the largest university in the Milwaukee metropolitan area and a member of the University of Wiscons ...
school newspaper, the ''UW–M Post'', that depicted the conservative writer who is of Jewish-American heritage with a hooked nose, was republished on the front page of ''The Badger Herald''. The coverage of this article, that was accompanied by the controversial cartoon, followed the pattern of ''The Herald's'' decision to reprint images considered taboo. In February 2010, the ''Herald'' accepted a text ad on its website from Bradley Smith with the Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust, a
Holocaust denial Holocaust denial is an antisemitic conspiracy theory that falsely asserts that the Nazi genocide of Jews, known as the Holocaust, is a myth, fabrication, or exaggeration. Holocaust deniers make one or more of the following false statements: ...
organization. The ''Herald'' Editor in Chief at the time, Jason Smathers, defended the decision based on the belief that the community was strong enough to see and reject the ad. After a strong push back from the university community, of which at least 25 percent is Jewish, the newspaper said it regretted the pain the decision caused but ultimately kept the ad up for the entirety of its month-long run. In March 2010,the
United States Holocaust Museum The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust hist ...
used the newspaper's decision in a form letter soliciting donations from members. In 2013, ''The Badger Herald'' became an "online-first" publication, with print editions twice weekly. In 2015, the paper announced it would cut down its print editions to a weekly tabloid product.


Comics

In 1976, when numerous newspapers nationally including the Madison ''Capital Times'' declined to run a series of Garry Trudeau's "Doonesbury" comic strips because of their controversial content, ''The Badger Herald'' negotiated with the syndicate and was the only paper regionally to print the cartoons. ''The Badger Herald'' today publishes a
comics page The comics page of a daily newspaper is a page largely or entirely devoted to comic strips. Summary Some other features that frequently appear on the comics page are crossword puzzles and horoscopes. Other special pages in newspapers include the ...
one day a week in its print edition. Long-running comics include ''White Bread & Toast'' (sinc
at least 2004
and ''Rocky the Herald Comics Raccoon,'' about a witty, whiskey-swilling roustabout known for his sarcastic observations.


References


External links


''The Badger Herald'' websiteHistory of the ''Badger Herald''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Badger Herald, The University of Wisconsin–Madison Publications established in 1969 Student newspapers published in Wisconsin