The Commonwealth Times
The Commonwealth Times is the twice-weekly independent student newspaper for Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia.
History
The CT, as it is known, is VCU's independent student newspaper. It was founded in September 1969, and became independent from the Mass Communications School the next year. During its first decade, it had its headquarters in a historic house on West Franklin Street and ran ads for products including Budweiser beer.
The CT switched from broadsheet to tabloid in 1976, and later increased its frequency from twice a week to three times a week. Early in the spring 1998 semester, it switched back to twice-weekly (Monday and Thursday). George Templeton, known for his affinity for gerbils, served as the paper's associate sports editor and then sports editor for some time. Tom Netherland was the longtime Spectrum (arts & entertainment section) editor, and was known for his homophobia and constant coverage of such subjects as Hank Williams, which were rather out of touch with the readership of an urban university. Also during this time, the CT was known for The Picks, a weekly feature during the football season, usually on the back page. It included mugshots of staff members, along with their picks for upcoming NFL games and records so far in the season. Below that was a narrative, normally written by the sports editor, that commented on the staff members' progress in The Picks and used double entendres and plain-old raunch to describe them and their personalities. The Picks drew the fire of university administration for years, and was eventually eliminated in the early 2000s.
The offices moved in 1988 to what was then the brand-new General Purpose Academic Building at 901 W. Main St. It was renamed the T. Edward Temple Building in 1998.
The paper's payroll and office supplies came from its advertising revenue, while student activity fees paid for printing. In the mid-2000s, the CT's computers were finally updated and the paper became fully paginated and started using color photographs. Prior to that, staff members had used outdated Macintosh computers, most of which had been acquired in the early 1990s, and still pasted up pages and sized pictures manually.
The CT is now based in VCU's Student Media Center, 817 W. Broad St., Richmond. In 2008 the paper received a national first-place award from the Society of Professional Journalists for its breaking-news coverage of the massacre at Virginia Tech as well as a number of awards from the Virginia Press Association. The CT online is available at [1] . More information on VCU's independent student media is available at [2].
External links
- Commonwealth Times -- official site