Editor’s note: An article that ran in The Daily Tar Heel at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1993, still applies to student newspapers today. As a genre of newspapers, student newspapers have rich histories that stretch to the late 1790s, making them the oldest newspaper genre in the United States. This is an adaptation of the Tar Hill piece written by Jen Pilla.
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After weathering more than 200 years of change, the student newspaper is not the graying, battered lady one might expect. For she is reborn each year, with the coming of a fresh crop of new writers and editors. With them comes a renewed sense of enthusiasm, a fresh set of ideas and a vibrant hope for the future.
Writers still “misspell words, omit commas and employ hackneyed phrases” that reveal them as inexperienced journalists.
But the eternal youth of the student press, nevertheless, is considered a blessing because it is youth that keeps it, like a typical adolescent, defiant in the face of authority, eager for growth, and protective of its freedom.
