The Daily Cardinal - Definition and Overview

The Daily Cardinal was founded in 1892 by William Wesley Young, a student who also became the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s first journalism major. The Cardinal began publication on April 4 of that year with a circulation of 400 copies costing 3 cents apiece.

The Cardinal survived many early challenges to its autonomy, including university professors attempting to censor the paper and accusations from students that it was a mouthpiece for faculty. It outlasted two early competitors, the weekly Aegis and the Wisconsin Daily News.

In 1927, the Cardinal established its own print shop in the basement of the old YMCA building. It later became the first student paper in the country to be printed on an offset press. During the Great Depression, the Cardinal’s staunch stance against compulsory military training for male students at the university earned it a reputation as a “radical” paper.

The Cardinal grew strongest during the 1940s, winning a string of national journalism awards and publishing some of its finest writing before and during World War II, when, as men left for war, women moved into leadership roles at the paper for the first time. Just before the war broke out, the Cardinal established its own building at 823 University Avenue and moved its presses there, printing other university publications as well as the Cardinal.

In 1956, the Cardinal board donated the building, the land it stood on and the presses and assests of its publishing company to the university. Vilas Communications Hall now stands on the site, and this lucrative donation is the reason the Cardinal enjoys rent-free space in the building.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the Cardinal advocated strongly for civil rights and opposed U.S. participation in the Vietnam War. A divisive staff strike in the late 1970s was overcome by the staff's determination to remain united in the face of opposition from the university’s student government.

The 1980s were another strong period for the Cardinal. In 1983, it became a free paper and in 1985 it survived a hostile takeover attempt by its rival, The Badger Herald. In 1988, the university announced it would shut down the Cardinal’s presses, then relocated in Vilas Hall, and Cardinal editors convinced the university to retire its debt and sell the presses to UW Extension, which remained the Cardinal’s printer for the next five years.

The Cardinal celebrated its centennial in 1992, an occasion that drew 400 alumni back to the paper and congratulations from then-U.S. Rep. Scott Klug, who read into the congressional record that “throughout the years, The Daily Cardinal has distinguished itself as a student newspaper that is unmatched as the college level.”

Those words remain true today. Although hard times struck the Cardinal and forced a temporary shutdown in 1995, the paper’s staff members have always endured by their determination to set themselves apart from their competitors. They have done so by conducting themselves with courage, with class and with knowledge of the responsibility they bear for the campus.

Their work is enjoyed and respected in the university, the city, the state and the nation, and the recent string of prestigious journalism awards they have won and the business successes they have achieved show that others recognize this as well.

Copyright © 2001-2002 The Daily Cardinal Media Corp.