Daily Bruin


The Daily Bruin is the student newspaper at the University of California, Los Angeles. It began publishing in 1919, the year UCLA was founded. It is now the only five-day paper serving a University of California campus.
The Daily Bruin distributes 9,000 copies across campus each school day. It also publishes PRIME, a quarterly arts, culture and lifestyle magazine, and Bruinwalk.com, a professor, class and apartment review website.

Frequency and governance

The Bruin is published Monday through Friday during the school year, twice a week during the last week of the quarter, once a week during finals week, and once a week on Mondays in the summer quarter. The Bruin's staff also publishes PRIME, a quarterly lifestyle magazine, and maintains , a professor and apartment review site.
It is published by the ASUCLA Communications Board, which sets policies for the newspaper and other campus communications media. The current editor in chief is Angie Forburger.
The Daily Bruin has 13 editorial departments: news writing, sports writing, arts & entertainment writing, opinion writing, blogging, infographic reporting, digital development, video journalism, copy editing, photojournalism, design, PRIME, and cartoons and illustrations.

Location

The Daily Bruin office and newsroom is located on the first floor of Kerckhoff Hall, Room 118.

History

Nomenclature

The Daily Bruin was preceded by the weekly Normal Outlook on the campus of UCLA's predecessor, the Los Angeles State Normal School, from 1910 through 1918 or 1919.
Upon the establishment in fall 1919 of the Southern Branch of the University of California, as UCLA was first known, the twice-weekly Cub Californian was first issued on Sept. 29, 1919. Its name was changed to the California Grizzly with the issue of March 21, 1924, and on Sept. 13, 1925 it began to publish five days a week.
On October 22, 1926, the newspaper became known as the California Daily Bruin. During World War II it reduced its publication frequency to three times a week under the title California Bruin, reverting to a daily publication at war's end. On April 2, 1948, the name was changed to UCLA Daily Bruin.

Control

The newspaper has generally been under control of the student organization now known as the Associated Students UCLA, or ASUCLA, although during the summer sessions of the 1920s and 1930s "the newspapers were used as laboratory papers for journalism classes, with financial support coming directly from the University." In the 1950s, the Summer Bruin was again taken over by the Administration, and '"controversial social issues" were banned from print during the summers.
Until 1955, the Associated Students was considered the publisher of the Daily Bruin, sometimes directly under the student council and sometimes with the interposition of a Publications Board. Editors were named by the student council. This system resulted in frequent political struggles between the staff and the student council.
During the height of the McCarthy era, with the newspaper staff being accused of Communist leanings, the university administration in 1955 revised the governance of the paper and instituted a system whereby the student body itself elected the editor. "Editors had to run for elective office just like politicians, and the newspaper was closely controlled by the Council," wrote William C. Ackerman, the ASUCLA graduate administrator.
The practice of student election of editors ended in 1963 with the establishment of the ASUCLA Communications Board, a student-led organization that selects the editors of the Bruin as well as the editors for the other seven newsmagazines and UCLA Radio.

'Hell's Bells'

In 1926, editor John F. Cohee was expelled from school by Ernest Carroll Moore, the campus administrator and director, for what Moore called "certain indecent statements which affront the good name of the women of the University." These were apparently a tongue-in-cheek "report" that some sorority women had been seen cavorting nude in the Pacific Ocean surf. This article was included in a twice-yearly burlesque edition of the Daily Bruin known as "Hell's Bells."
Three years later, Director Moore suspended 14 students for publishing the January 23, 1929, issue of "Hell's Bells", "the filthiest and most indecent piece of printed matter that any of us has ever seen." Some of those students were later reinstated. That was the last issue of "Hell's Bells."

1954 protest and student election of editors

On December 15, 1954, the editor of the Daily Bruin and a group of 250 students demonstrated against administrative action that required the newspaper to adopt a constitution "because it would otherwise be operating 'under sufferance and illegally.'" Dean of Students Milton E. Hahn had sent a memorandum to Chancellor Raymond B. Allen on Dec. 7. 1954, "after a preparation period of almost two years." He wrote:
"We have gathered here for the mock funeral of The Daily Bruin as a free newspaper," said editor Martin McReynolds. "The Bruin is not actually dead yet, but on the students' action will depend whether it will live or die."
The response was sparked by the actions of the UCLA administration in the preceding years. During the summer of 1954, Hahn proceeded in his attempt to bring about a more "responsible" Bruin.
Eventually, on November 23, 1954, President Sproul granted approval by telegram for a new student-election plan for the Daily Bruin. The Bruin was not informed of any of the changes to the editorial structure, though editor McReynolds caught word of the plan and wrote an editorial on Dec. 8, stating that "Someone, probably the Administration, has been planning this change for at least six weeks. The planning has all been kept secret from The Daily Bruin and the students at large." December 8 was the same day Hahn submitted the plan to the Student Council.
In addition to this limitation, the plan required that:
A total of 3,004 signatures, representing one-fifth of the student body, were collected for a petition to be sent to Sproul to retract the plan. The number of signatures was about a thousand more than the number of student who voted in the preceding ASUCLA election.
Loud Bark and Curious Eyes states that Sproul
... asserted in an unpublicized memo to Allen that it was a "local matter" for UCLA authorities alone to decide, though he did not mention the series of memoranda in the Berkeley office nor his own telegram of Nov. 23.

The Bruin staff nominated six candidates to become editors the following year, but all six were rejected by the selection committee appointed to decide on the new editors.

21st Century

In 2013, the Daily Bruin’s publisher laid off most of its full-time employees, following more than a decade of consistently declining advertising revenues that reflected the national newspaper industry. Despite layoffs, it retained UCLA Student Media Director Doria Deen, editorial advisor Abigail Goldman and Business Manager Jeremy Wildman.
In spring 2016, UCLA's student body voted in favor of the "Daily Bruin and Bruinwalk.com Referendum", which guaranteed student fees to support the Bruin as its print advertising revenues continue to decline.

Stonewall

In 2013, the Daily Bruin created the "Stonewall" as an online record of sources who "stonewalled," or refused to speak, with reporters. The "Stonewall" was created in effort to maintain transparency with readers about individuals in the community who thwarted Daily Bruin reporters' attempts at providing information. The most recent stone added to the "Stonewall" was on June 5, 2019, when the UCLA media relations delayed an interview with administrators regarding a professor's child sexual abuse conviction for several weeks.

''The Stack''

Data editor Neil Bedi launched The Stack, Daily Bruin's data journalism and newsroom tech blog, in March 2015. Articles analyze public data and present them with accompanying quantitative graphics and visualizations. Previous projects include examining the data of the mandatory Undergraduate Students Association Council student fees over time, funding sources behind UCLA research projects, and rate of major changes amongst UCLA students.
The Stack makes all the code on its blog available under open-source licenses on GitHub.

Editors

''Normal Outlook''

1920s

The Daily Bruin and its staffers earn honors at local, state, regional and national levels on an annual basis. Listed below are some of the prominent honors the Daily Bruin has received organizationally.

National

Associated Collegiate Press – Pacemaker Awards
Society of Professional Journalists – National Mark of Excellence Awards
Society of Professional Journalists – Region 11 Mark of Excellence Awards
California College Media Association – Excellence in Student Media Awards
California Newspaper Publishers Association – Campus Excellence in Journalism Awards
Los Angeles Press Club – SoCal Journalism Awards
Awards last updated in October 2019

''Daily Bruin'' Hall of Fame

Other Notable Alumni
If not cited here, references can be found within the articles.