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The Harvard Crimson, of Harvard University, is the United States' oldest continuously published daily college newspaper. It was founded in 1873 and then incorporated in 1967. The Crimson traces its origin to the first issue of The Magenta, published January 24, 1873. The newspaper changed its name to "The Crimson" to reflect the new color of the college on May 21, 1875.
The student paper, which consistently wins high honors, has a rich past as a testing ground for future journalists, and several have gone on to win Pulitzer Prizes. Its distinguished alumni include Presidents John F. Kennedy of the Class of 1940 and Franklin D. Roosevelt, Class of 1904 (who served as president of the newspaper).
In 1991 student reporters for the Crimson were the first to break the news that Harvard had selected former Princeton Provost Neil Leon Rudenstine to succeed Derek Bok as President of the university. The reporters, who had learned of a secret meeting in New York, got their confirmation when they approached a surprised Rudenstine on his plane ride back to Boston. The story appeared in an extra bearing the dateline "SOMEWHERE OVER NEW ENGLAND."
Resourceful Crimson editors repeated the scoop in 2001, beating out national media outlets to report that Larry Summers would succeed Rudenstine.
The Harvard Crimson is the only daily newspaper in Cambridge, Mass., and is run entirely by Harvard undergraduates. Any student who volunteers and completes a training requirement is elected an "editor" of the newspaper. Thus, all staff members of the Crimson--including writers, photographers and graphic designers--are technically "editors."
The Crimson is one of the few college newspapers in the U.S. that owns its own printing presses. In 2004 the Crimson began publishing editions with a full-color front page.
The Crimson has a long and rich rivalry with a certain "semi-secret Sorrento Square social organization that used to occasionally publish a so-called humor magazine," known to most others as the Harvard Lampoon.
Notable Past Editors
- Jonathan Alter, journalist for Newsweek
- Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft
- Adam Clymer, author, journalist for the New York Times
- Michael Crichton, author
- E.J. Dionne, Jr., columnist for the Washington Post
- Daniel Ellsberg, released the Pentagon Papers
- James Fallows, journalist
- Susan Faludi, author
- Donald Graham, CEO and chairman of the Washington Post Co.
- Linda Greenhouse, journalist for the New York Times
- David Halberstam, author
- Howard Hughes, wealthy businessman
- Dara Horn, novelist
- David Ignatius, columnist for the Washington Post
- Walter Isaacson, former CEO/chairman of CNN, former managing editor of Time, author
- Boisfeuillet Jones, Jr., publisher and CEO of the Washington Post
- John F. Kennedy, 35th President of the United States
- Mickey Kaus, journalist and political blogger
- Michael Kinsley, editorial and opinion editor for the Los Angeles Times, former founding editor of Slate magazine
- Nicholas D. Kristof, columnist for the New York Times
- Charles Lane, former editor of The New Republic
- Nicholas Lemann, dean of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
- Anthony Lewis, author and former columnist for the New York Times
- Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform
- Frank Rich, columnist for the New York Times
- Steve Roberts, television journalist
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States
- David Sanger, journalist for the New York Times
- Paul Sweezy, Marxist economist and funder of the Monthly Review
- Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, daughter of U.S. President John F. Kennedy
- Caspar Weinberger, United States Secretary of Defense under President Ronald Reagan
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