The Daily Tar Heel

I read the Daily Tar Heel every day, starting with the police blotter and the Daily Dose, which is a small section on page 2 that features strange or funny news stories from around the world. I used to love the Kvetching Board, a Friday feature that includes short, usually witty gripes submitted by readers, but lately the comments have been whiney and humorless. The DTH covers a pretty wide range of national, local, and University stories, so anything that’s worth hearing about you can probably find within its pages. I do find the occasional spelling or punctuation error, but for the most part the journalism is top-​notch. And yes, the palpable liberal bias has been especially evident recently, but come on — it’s an election year. All forms of mass media have agendas. I read the music and film reviews, as well, but that’s one section that in my opinion does usually illustrate the hipper-​than-​thou vibe some other reviewers have mentioned.

The Daily Tarheel is a great campus paper, thanks in huge part to the excellent journalism school at UNC. It certainly skews liberal, but they do a good job in offering conservative columnists and managing equality in op-​eds. The layout is professional and the content is wide-​ranging and pertinent. I felt spoiled by this paper when I went to grad school at UNC-​Greensboro. Their campus paper is a fairly infant and very amateur operation. I’d sportingly tally up the number of misspellings in each issue — once they even spelled ‘Greensboro’ wrong — it’s the name of the university and the city for Christ’s sake! Ahem. At any rate, it made me miss and appreciate that much more the service and talent behind UNC’s paper. They also have an amazing-​looking and functioning online version.

Let me preface: Back in the day, I worked for a publication on UNC’s campus that was not the DTH. We did not compete with the DTH (we had no desire to, and filled a very different niche), but in the interest of full disclosure, there it is.
That being said, the DTH is not a good newspaper. I’m fully aware of the awards it wins and the reputation for excellence it has, which leads me to question the standards that other college newspapers hold themselves to. Are they even printed on paper? Are they using the English language? Do their editors hold children hostage at gunpoint at every budget meeting? What paltry requirements must there be for a college newspaper that the DT-​bleeding-​H gets five-​star reviews and annual awards?
Most upsetting is the irrelevance of the stories. One gets the impression that these are not journalists actually trying to convey the news, but children making mountains out of their playground politics, dressing them up with official-​sounding rhetoric and pompous bylines. Bicycle pumps do not concern me, and I am already well-​aware of the endless tuition increases. Tell me something useful.
The staff seems terribly prejudiced, as well. The DTH is something of a magic eye puzzle; if you look at it real hard and unfocus your eyes, you can see the petty, ill-​thought-​out agendas that the writers and editors curl up with at night to make the loneliness burn just a little bit less. If you’re going to report on trivialities, at least make them unbiased trivialities.
The best things about the DTH are the classified pages and the crossword puzzle, which alone accounts for 77% of all DTH reader interest. Also (to be fair), there is occasionally something mentioned that’s actually worth thinking about, usually about one story per week. Other than that, you can get your daily dose of laughs by flipping through the headlines looking for spelling errors.

The DTH is a well written newspaper for all– students, faculty & locals. There is a wealth of information in here on both a local and national level, information regarding different campus organizations, happenings in and around Chapel Hill and today’s hot national topics. If you’re a student looking for a part-​time gig, you’ll find it in the back of the paper along with great apartment shares and houses that are currently available.

As a former UNC journalism major, I admit that I’m biased. Still, the Daily Tar Heel is an excellent paper — probably one of the top college papers in the country. You could do worse than to get your news from here.
The DTH (which is free) is available all around town. Pick up a copy for national and local news, and a look at what’s happening on campus. The «Kvetching Board» is a humorous new-​ish addition to the line-up…see what irks today’s college student.

Whether your a student, townee, or just visiting the Daily Tar Heel is a must read. I’m a newspaper junkie, and try to get my hands on local rags wherever I’m at, but this college publication is worthwhile even for the casual reader.
The DTH annually recognized as one of the top collegiate newspapers in the country, and deceivingly so. They have a dedication to professional journalism with an ear to both students and the larger university and Chapel Hill community.
For non-​students this is a great way to get your hand on the pulse of what local young people are thinking, and a refreshingly untainted look at the news from a youthful idealism that’s often faded by the time journalists reach the professional ranks.
The DTH is careful to cover local, state, and national news in addition to campus stories. So there is something for everyone in this daily.
You don’t have to be on-​campus to get a copy either. Boxes are stationed around town. On-​campus or off, the DTH is free, which is a big plus.
Also worth noting is that the DTH is probably the most effective place to advertise for local businesses as most every student is sure to pick on up each day.