The Badger Herald

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

The Badger Herald is the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s student newspaper. It was founded in 1969 by students who wanted a conservative alternative to The Daily Cardinal. The paper is published Monday through Friday during the academic year and sometimes during the summer. It sells about 6,000 copies and is also available online. The Herald is owned by The Badger Herald, Inc., a nonprofit run entirely by UW–Madison students and funded only by advertising revenue. The company is governed by a nine‑student board, with three non‑voting advisers, including First Amendment scholar Donald Downs and former Republican congressional candidate John Sharpless. The staff numbers around 100. The office is at 152 W. Johnson St., Suite 202, and the paper is printed by Capital Newspapers, Inc., which also prints the Wisconsin State Journal and The Capital Times.

The Herald began after fundraising by conservative students who disagreed with The Daily Cardinal, which at the time was associated with more radical campus activism. The first issue was published on September 10, 1969, after the founders rented a small office and acquired desks and typewriters. In the late 1970s the paper moved to a new office on State Street, and in 1998 it relocated again, keeping much of its early furniture. Founding editor Patrick S. Korten received financial support from conservative writer William F. Buckley in 1971, helping the paper stay independent from university funds.

For much of its history the Herald was a conservative voice on a campus that was very liberal. It grew in influence and, by the early 1990s, became the dominant campus newspaper in Madison, even as it faced competition from Mendota Beacon, a conservative paper that briefly rose in response. The Herald has published provocative material at times, including controversial opinion pieces in the 1970s that sparked campus protests, and it was the first Wisconsin paper to publish Doonesbury cartoons in 1976 when many others refused.

In 2001 the Herald ran an advertisement by David Horowitz arguing against reparations for slavery, a move that drew national attention and protests but was not apologized for. The paper’s independent stance continued to be noted by major outlets such as the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. In 2006 the Herald’s editorial page published a cartoon depicting Muhammad, and in 2008 it republished a controversial Horowitz cartoon from another campus paper; both actions reflected the paper’s willingness to publish provocative content in the name of open debate. In 2010 the Herald ran a text ad from the Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust; after community backlash, the paper kept the ad up for its full run but expressed regret for the hurt it caused.

In 2013 the Badger Herald shifted to an online-first model, with print editions reduced to twice weekly. In 2015 it further reduced print to a weekly tabloid, and during the COVID-19 pandemic print editions were scaled back to once per month while online coverage continued daily. The paper has continued to engage with campus issues, and its 2024 coverage of student protests against the war in Gaza drew significant attention for its in‑depth, around‑the‑clock reporting.

The Herald also runs a comics page in its weekly print edition, featuring long-running strips such as White Bread & Toast and Rocky the Herald Comics Raccoon. The paper remains a student‑run, independent newsroom that emphasizes free expression and open debate on campus.