The Cornell Daily Sun

The Cornell Daily Sun is an independent newspaper published three times a week in Ithaca, New York, by students at Cornell University and hired employees. Founded in 1880, The Sun is the oldest continuously independent college daily in the United States.

The Cornell Daily Sun
TypeStudent newspaper
FormatTabloid
Owner(s)Independent
EditorAngela Bunay
141st Editorial Board
FoundedSeptember 16, 1880
HeadquartersIthaca, New York
Circulation3,000 (as of 2022[1])
ISSN1095-8169
Websitecornellsun.com
Building front

The Sun features coverage of the university and its environs as well as stories from the Associated Press and UWIRE. It prints on weekdays when the university is open for academic instruction as a tabloid-sized daily. In addition to these regular issues, The Sun publishes a graduation issue and a freshman issue, which is mailed to incoming Cornell freshmen before their first semester. The paper is free on campus and online.

Aside from a few full-time production and business positions, The Sun is staffed by Cornell students and is fully independent of the university. It operates out of its own building in downtown Ithaca. The Sun is the twentieth-ranked college newspaper in the United States as of 2022, according to The Princeton Review.[2]

History

Front Page Layout

The Cornell Sun was founded in 1880 by William Ballard Hoyt to challenge Cornell's original and leading publication, the weekly Cornell Era (founded 1868).

The Sun boasted in its opening paragraph: "We have no indulgence to ask, no favors to beg." The paper incorporated and changed to daily frequency, earning its longstanding boast "Ithaca's Only Morning Newspaper." In 1912 it added a second, "first collegiate member of the Associated Press."

Throughout its history, the publication has faced competition from The Cornell Review and the Ithaca Journal in the market for Cornell news and analysis.[3]

Common features include "Cornell's 161 Faces," which highlights a diverse group of Cornell students and a sex column that appears every Thursday.

Following the shift of its main competitor, the Ithaca Journal, from evening to morning daily publication in 1996, The Sun changed its traditional front page slogan which, after several iterations, now states "Independent Since 1880." This period also marked a shift in The Sun's content from national to local and university-related stories.

In January 2003, the Cornell Daily Sun Alumni Association purchased the former Elks Lodge in downtown Ithaca, erected 1916. Led by Stanley Chess, the founding president of the Association, John Schroeder '74, and Gary L. Rubin '72, the alumni completely renovated the building over the next several months. Now called the Cornell Daily Sun Building, it has housed the paper's offices since June 2003 and is coincidentally located next door to the Ithaca Journal's offices. The building also houses a kava bar in its basement.

In the fall semester of 2004, The Sun turned free and started featuring full-color front and back pages as part of a redesign in its layout. These moves were partially effected to boost circulation in response to Cornell's Student Assembly's decision to provide The New York Times and USA Today on campus for free to all undergraduate Cornell students.

On September 17, 2005, more than 370 Sun alumni and guests gathered in Manhattan to celebrate The Sun's 125th anniversary. Speakers included Kurt Vonnegut '43, Carl Leubsdorf '59, Sam Roberts '68, Jay Branegan '73, Howard A. Rodman '71, S. Miller Harris '44, and Jeremy Schaap '91. The emcee was Stan Chess '69. A 130th anniversary dinner was held on September 25, 2010.

In 2016 the paper announced that it was reducing its publication rate from five days a week to three.[4]

Alumni

The Cornell Daily Sun Alumni Association, comprising former editors, managers and staff of the Cornell Daily Sun, exists to further journalism by Cornell University students.

The Sun claims over one dozen Pulitzer Prize winners and boasts a number of other prominent alumni, including:

Kurt Vonnegut, Associate Editor 1942-1943, Novelist and Satirist
E.B. White, Editor-in-Chief 1920-1921, Author of Charlotte's Web, Pulitzer Prize Winner
S.E. Cupp, Arts & entertainment editor – CNN host, political commentator and author
Farhad Manjoo, editor-in-chief (1999–2000) – journalist and author; New York Times technology writer and opinion columnist[5]
Harold O. Levy, Columnist — New York City Schools Chancellor from 2000-2002, and executive director of the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation
Svante Myrick, editorial board – Former Mayor of Ithaca, New York

Other prominent Cornellians have written letters to the editor, like Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who responded to an op-ed on wiretapping written by Cornell Law students on with a letter of her own in 1953.

See also

References

  1. "The Cornell Daily Sun Media Kit 2022-2023" (PDF). 2022. Retrieved March 30, 2023.
  2. "Cornell University". The Princeton Review.
  3. "Victim Details Alleged Rape to Ithaca Police Department | the Cornell Daily Sun". Archived from the original on 2013-06-13. Retrieved 2013-07-02.
  4. Victor, Daniel (2016-05-10). "At Cornell, the College Daily Will No Longer Be Daily". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-03-31.
  5. Bennet, James; Dao, Jim; Kingsbury, Katie (November 27, 2018). "Farhad Manjoo to Join Opinion as a Columnist". New York Times. Retrieved 17 January 2019.
  6. Lowery, George (12 April 2007). "Kurt Vonnegut Jr., novelist, counterculture icon and Cornellian, dies at 84". Cornell Chronicle. Cornell University. Archived from the original on 25 February 2021. Retrieved 2 March 2021. "I spent the whole time I was here working on the Cornell Sun, and that's how I got my liberal arts education," Vonnegut once said
  7. "Goldin Solutions - Media Access, Strategies & Results". Goldin Solutions.
  8. "Marc Lacey named national editor at The New York Times". Poynter. July 8, 2016.
  9. Bennet, James; Dao, Jim; Kingsbury, Katie (November 27, 2018). "Farhad Manjoo to Join Opinion as a Columnist". New York Times. Retrieved 17 January 2019.
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