''The Booze News'' is a satirical newspaper founded at the

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univ ...

in February 2004 by Atish Doshi and Derek Chin. The free paper, published weekly with a circulation of 20,000, is written, edited and distributed by students at UIUC. Currently, ''The Booze News'' is headquartered in

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

and continues to exist under The Black Sheep.

Origins and expansion

According to co-founder Derek Chin, ''The Booze News'' was founded as a twelve-page paper in 2004. With innovative and controversial content the paper's popularity quickly grew among the University of Illinois student base, and as that popularity was further realized by the local advertisers, the paper expanded to twenty pages. The first campus expansion took place in 2005, as ''The Booze News'' began publishing a twelve-page issue at

Illinois State University Illinois State University (ISU) is a public university in Normal, Illinois. Founded in 1857 as Illinois State Normal University, it is the oldest public university in Illinois. The university emphasizes teaching and is recognized as one of th ...

. In 2006, The Booze News expanded further, and began distribution at three more schools,

The University of Wisconsin ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

Madison Madison may refer to: People * Madison (name), a given name and a surname * James Madison (1751–1836), fourth president of the United States Place names * Madison, Wisconsin, the state capital of Wisconsin and the largest city known by this ...

The University of Iowa The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is organized into 12 coll ...

in Iowa City,

Indiana University Indiana University (IU) is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana. Campuses Indiana University has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration of IUPUI. *Indiana Universi ...

Bloomington, Indiana Bloomington is a city in and the county seat of Monroe County in the central region of the U.S. state of Indiana. It is the seventh-largest city in Indiana and the fourth-largest outside the Indianapolis metropolitan area. According to the Mo ...

University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida, traces its origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its ...

Gainesville, FL Gainesville is the county seat of Alachua County, Florida, and the largest city in North Central Florida, with a population of 141,085 in 2020. It is the principal city of the Gainesville metropolitan area, which had a population of 339,247 in 2 ...

University of Georgia , mottoeng = "To teach, to serve, and to inquire into the nature of things.""To serve" was later added to the motto without changing the seal; the Latin motto directly translates as "To teach and to inquire into the nature of things." , establ ...

Athens, GA Athens, officially Athens–Clarke County, is a consolidated city-county and college town in the U.S. state of Georgia. Athens lies about northeast of downtown Atlanta, and is a satellite city of the capital. The University of Georgia, the state ...

and the

University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou, MU, or Missouri) is a public land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus University of Missouri System. MU was founded in ...

in Columbia, Missouri. (The University of Wisconsin, Indiana University and University of Missouri issues are no longer in print.) In 2008 the parent company of ''The Booze News'' was dissolved. "The Booze News" remained for two years and now operates as " The Black Sheep.".

Weekly content

Each week the student-writers at ''The Booze News'' produce several comedic articles that poke fun at life as a college students. Often the content consists of many one-shot satirical articles that comment on current campus occurrences, as well as one or two recurring columns that anchor weekly readership. For example, Volume 13, issue 3, published on September 10, 2008, led with a one-shot article parodying a hoax email sent out by UIUC Chancellor Richard Herman, and contained two regular columns, a fake interview with UIUC football coach

Ron Zook Ronald Andrew Zook (; born April 28, 1954) is an American football coach and former player who currently serves as the Defensive Coordinator of the Seattle Sea Dragons of the XFL. He was the head football coach at the University of Florida from ...

and a sex-themed column, "Sex in the C-U". In addition to the weekly articles, ''The Booze News'' runs a rotating series of alcohol reviews, CD reviews, bartender interviews,

drinking game Drinking games are games which involve the consumption of alcoholic beverages and often enduring the subsequent intoxication resulting from them. Evidence of the existence of drinking games dates back to antiquity. Drinking games have been banned ...

s, class-time games and celebrity interviews.

Controversy

''The Booze News'' often garners criticism for promoting

underage drinking The legal drinking age is the minimum age at which a person can legally consume alcoholic beverages. The minimum age alcohol can be legally consumed can be different from the age when it can be purchased in some countries. These laws vary between ...

and binge drinking, but co-founder Atish Doshi notes that "The paper is not for eight-year olds," and "The students love it." In October 2008 ''The Booze News'' came under popular scrutiny for an article in its University of Missouri edition. The article in question was "Judging A Book By Its Cover". The writer of the controversial article published a fictional interpretation of the plot of a children's book. Previous books used to for the "Judging a Book By Its Cover" series include, ''Elmo Pops In, The Box Car Children, The Hardy Boys, and The Little Engine That Could.'' Some of the older town's people were offended by the content. The incident garnered national attention from news media outlets such as

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...

Fox News The Fox News Channel, abbreviated FNC, commonly known as Fox News, and stylized in all caps, is an American multinational conservative cable news television channel based in New York City. It is owned by Fox News Media, which itself is owne ...

and the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...

''. T

References

External links

The Booze NewsThe Black Sheep
{{DEFAULTSORT:Booze News Newspapers established in 2004 Alternative weekly newspapers published in the United States