About Us

The Basics of the Columbia Daily Spectator

The Columbia Daily Spectator is the daily newspaper of Columbia University and Morningside Heights. We are the second-oldest college daily paper in the country and have been financially independent from the University since 1962. The newspaper is published five days a week during the academic year. The paper, which has a circulation of 10,000, is delivered to over 150 locations throughout Morningside Heights every day.

Spectator Publishing Company also produces a range of other publications, including The Eye, a weekly features and arts magainze; La Pagina, a weekly Spanish-language bulletin, and an annual Unofficial Guide to Columbia for first-years.<

The Columbia Daily Spectator is written and edited by Columbia University undergraduates. We serve the communities of Columbia University and Morningside Heights as a forum for the expression of diverse viewpoints, a top source for in-depth and comprehensive news and features, and a rewarding extracurricular opportunity for our staff. For busy students, Spectator is the only consistent source of local news, and for community members, it is the only place for information about University events and services. Serving a community of over 60,000 students, faculty, administrators, and Morningside Heights residents, the Columbia Daily Spectator is the most widely-read newspaper in Morningside Heights and Harlem.

A Brief History

The first Spectator featured no photographs and no headlines. It was printed only twice a month, and ran literary submissions alongside of news. Still, its editors aspired to create a publication where the campus would turn for information. In its first issue, they pledged to be "independent, but not neutral." Over the next twenty years, they wrote editorials and short news pieces on everything from the campus space crunch to the appointment of new presidents, along with profiles, short stories and poems.

Slowly, the paper began to emphasize news and more serious journalism. In 1899, the paper abandoned its literary magazine roots - instead editors began printing the paper twice a week and broadening their coverage to include campus news, administrative decisions and student groups. They even brought photographs and headlines to the front page.

In 1902, the editors made a big leap forward - they began to publish the paper daily. With the decision to print daily came a commitment to professionalism - Spectator began covering news from across the University, alumni news, and sports.

Throughout the first half of the century, Spectator continued to expand its coverage and its scope. Then in 1960, the paper broke from the University, incorporating itself as an independent organization under the Spectator Publishing Company and seeking funding entirely by advertising. While the early days of independence were difficult, Spectator eventually found its footing. Its newfound independence allowed the paper to be freely critical of the administration in a time when students were occupying buildings in protest of the Vietnam War and, at Columbia, the construction of a new gym in Morningside Park.

As Spectator neared its hundredth birthday, it made a return to the impartial journalism that had characterized it during the first half of the 20th century, this time free from the constraints of University funding. As Spectator's financial footing became more secure, the paper expanded in circulation, staff, and coverage to include coverage of the Morningside Heights neighborhood, arts and entertainment, and features.

In 2004, the paper transitioned from a black and white tabloid to a color broadsheet paper. A few years later, it began developing other publications, including the Eye, a weekly lifestyle magazine, and La Pagina, a weekly Spanish newspaper.

Famous Spectator alumni include Roone Arledge, a former sportscaster and head of ABC News; Max Frankel, the executive editor of the New York Times; Dick Wald, former president of NBC; poet and novelist Langston Hughes, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner, and New Yorker writer Kate Boo.

- Adapted from "Independent But Not Neutral" by Ben Casselman. Columbia Daily Spectator, 12/21/01

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How the Spectator Works

Spectator is run by a Managing Board of twenty section editors. The managing board is made up of the heads of the campus news, city news, sports, arts and entertainment, and opinion sections; the heads of the photography, production, and copy sections; the online editor, the alumni director, and the sales and finance directors. Editors from the Eye also sit on the managing board, along with the managing editor, publisher and editor in chief. Together, the board makes paper-wide decisions like whether to move to broadsheet or develop a new website.

Each member of the managing board is also in charge of running a section. Every section is also made up of a group of deputy and associate editors. The role of deputy editors varies from section to section, but most are responsible for supervising writers and editors and coordinating coverage of particular subjects. Associate editors are our night editors - they are responsible for editing stories, writing headlines and captions, choosing and editing photos and laying out the page on a nightly basis.

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Commenting Policy

The Columbia Daily Spectator allows commenting on its online articles in hopes of inspiring discussion and debate surrounding issues of note to the Columbia community. We realize that it's easy for the discussion to grow heated when the issues are controversial, as they often are, but in order for discussion to be productive, it is necessary that certain baseline norms of civility, calmness, and reasonability prevail. With that in mind, there are certain rules to which commenters on columbiaspectator.com are bound.

• The Columbia Daily Spectator reserves the right to remove at any time for any reason without warning a comment, including if it contains:
• Hate speech, including but not limited to racist, bigoted, or defamatory material;
• An ad hominem, defamatory, or otherwise threatening attack on the author of a piece, a member of the Columbia community, a member of the Spectator staff, or another user of the site;
• Libelous, defamatory, obscene, pornographic, abusive, or otherwise illegal material;
• Commercial content, including but not limited to advertisements and/or solicitation of funds
• A violation of copyright or trademark laws.
• The Columbia Daily Spectator reserves at its sole discretion the right: (1) to suspend the user accounts and/or ban the IP addresses of individuals who continually post materials that violate the above conditions; (2) to take further action against individuals who continually violate said conditions, including contacting web service providers, Columbia administrators, or local, state, and federal authorities.
• You are solely responsible for the content of your messages; you cannot hold the Columbia Daily Spectator or Spectator Publishing Company responsible for any consequences that come of your postings on columbiaspectator.com.

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Contact Us

Have a question? Criticism? Correction? You can contact us directly by emailing info@columbiaspectator.com or call us at (212) 854-9555.

General Contact Information:

Columbia Spectator
2875 Broadway, 3rd Floor
New York City, NY 10025
spectator@columbia.edu
Daily Spectator: (212) 854-9555 - Editorial Fax (212) 854-9611
Business: (212) 854-9550 - Business Fax (212) 854-9553

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Corporate Board

If you have a general questions or comments about the paper, please either contact Editor in Chief Tom Faure or Managing Editor Amanda Sebba.

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The Eye

Business

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Editorial Board

Manal Alam, SEAS '09, joined the Editorial Board in January 2008 and is publisher of the Columbia Daily Spectator. She has been involved in the Columbia Science Review, Project Sunshine Book Buddies, and Mentoring Youth in New York City. Manal interned at the U.S. State Department in the summer of 2007 and at the Federal Reserve Bank in the summer of 2006. Originally from Minnesota, she is pursuing a major in biomedical engineering with a minor in economics.

Molly Alter, BC `10, joined the Editorial Board in February 2008. Born and raised in Miami, Molly is an economics and mathematics major with a possible English minor. She will be interning at Merrill Lynch through the end of this summer and is an employee of the Barnard Bartending Agency.

Alicia Bonner, BC '08, joined the Editorial Board in September 2007. A Barnard tour guide since March 2005, she now assists the admissions office as a senior admissions fellow. She has been a member of the Columbia Musical Theatre Society since January 2006 and served as the club's treasurer from January to December 2007. A political science major, she interned for Peacework, an international development nonprofit in the summer of 2007 in the Dominican Republic. She now interns in the Senate office of U.S. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) in Manhattan.

Grace Chan, CC '09, joined the Editorial Board in January 2008. She sits on the Activities Board at Columbia (ABC) as a representative for Black and Latino cultural groups and serves as the vice president of Quiz Bowl. Grace also moonlights as a crisis director for Model United Nations, a shill for Kings Crown Shakespeare Troupe’s As You Like It, and a weekend tutor for Community Impact's One-to-One Tutoring program. Previous club involvements include Spectator business (deputy publisher, The Eye, 131st Managing Board), production (associate editor), news (Facilities beat chief), and photo, as well as CTV News. She also interned in Mayor Bloomberg's press office in the summer of 2006. Grace is an economics major and hails from Westchester County, N.Y.

Caitlin Connolly-Rankin, BC '08, is a political science major and religion minor from Seattle, Wash. She joined the Editorial Board in September 2007. Caitlin manages the Barnard Bartending Agency, is the treasurer of LateNite Theatre, is a member of the Columbia Political Union, and has written for the Columbia Political Journal. Past internships include Sanctuary for Families, U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton's (D-N.Y.) 2006 senate re-election campaign, and the office of U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.) office in Washington, DC. She studied abroad in Paris at Reid Hall in the spring of 2007. Caitlin will be entering law school next autumn.

Tom Faure, CC '09, joined the Editorial Board in January 2008 when he was named editor in chief of the Columbia Daily Spectator. He was previously a deputy editor in the News section, where he specialized in campus politics and Student Governing Board student groups. He spent limited time in the fall of 2005 with Students for Economic and Environmental Justice, has published scattered poetry in the Blue and White magazine, and spent the summers of 2006 and 2007 interning and freelancing for the Journal News of White Plains, N.Y. A French native with a clear tendency for American music tastes, he is majoring in philosophy and sociology while acting as a closeted literature major.

Simone Foxman, CC '11, is an associate opinion editor for the Spectator and joined the Editorial Board in January 2008. Originally from Margate, N.J., she has been involved in a handful of theatrical productions at Columbia and is a member of the Columbia University Gospel Choir. Before joining the Opinion section, she also worked as a Spectator news writer. Though she has not yet declared a major, her collegiate studies have concentrated on film, political science, and Middle Eastern languages and cultures.

Chase Hensel, SEAS '10, joined the Editorial Board in February 2008. He works part-time as an undergraduate researcher for the Cardiac Biomechanics Group in biomedical engineering. He is a member of the fraternity Fiji and a former member of the SEAS Formula SAE team. He was a GK12 fellow and taught a course on the principles of robotics in the fall of 2006, and he worked for Machine Science, a nonprofit bringing robotics to children, in the previous summer. He hails from Massachusetts and majors in computer science.

Saumil Kachhy, CC '09, joined the Editorial Board in September 2007. Currently, he is a teaching assistant in the Columbia economics department and previously was the design editor for the Columbia Political Review. Born and raised on Long Island, he interned for U.S. Representative Timothy Bishop (D-N.Y.) the summer following his freshman year. He is an economics major with a concentration in mathematics.  

Jonathan Kamran, CC '08, joined the Editorial Board in Fall 2007. Prior to that, he was sports editor of Spectator for the 130th Managing Board. He is an economics and Middle Eastern studies major from Los Angeles, and will be working for Morgan Stanley in the fall.

Miriam Krule, CC '10, joined the Editorial Board in January 2008. She first worked for the Opinion section in January 2007 as an associate editor, and now serves as the editorial page editor. She was formerly the deputy literary editor for The Current, a journal of contemporary politics, culture, and Jewish affairs. She is involved in Yavneh, the Orthodox community of the Columbia/Barnard Hillel, and is majoring in philosophy. Before coming to Columbia, she took a year off to study in Israel. Although she grew up on the Upper West Side, she now lives in Teaneck, N.J.

Vedant Misra, CC `09, joined the Editorial Board in January 2008. He is on the boards of the Society of Physics Students and the Hindu Students Organization. He is a member of the Roosevelt Institution and has been involved with tae kwon do and tennis at Columbia. Vedant, a Rabi Scholar, grew up in the tristate area and is majoring in physics.

Brendan Price, CC '09, joined the Editorial Board in September 2007 and became deputy editor in January 2008. He is the managing editor of Columbia's Journal of Politics & Society and was a coordinator for Advocacy Coalition, a Community Impact group, in the fall of 2007. He is a member of CU Quiz Bowl and a former member of the CU Parliamentary Debate Team, and he interned for U.S. Senator Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) in the summer of 2006. A lifelong Long Islander, Brendan is majoring in economics and political science with a possible concentration in mathematics.

Amanda Sebba, CC ’09, joined the Editorial Board in January 2008 when she began her role as managing editor of the Columbia Daily Spectator. She is a Columbia College junior majoring in history. She is from Tampa, Fla. Before beginning her current role at Spectator, she was the deputy Arts & Entertainment editor and, before that, an associate Copy editor and Copy staffer. In addition to her position at Spectator, Amanda is also a campus tour guide, a member of the Undergraduate Recruitment Committee, and a board member of Kesher, a subgroup of Hillel.

Lauren Steinberg, GS/JTS ’09, joined the Editorial Board in January 2008. She is the political affairs director of LionPAC and co-chairs Wednesday Night Learning Program, a Jewish learning program at Hillel. She is a former member of the Columbia College Republicans, where she served as executive director in the 2007/8 academic year. Hailing from New City, N.Y., Lauren is majoring in political science and modern Jewish studies.

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Directions:

We are located at 2875 Broadway, between West 111th and 112th Streets. Look for the white sign, find the gray door with the keypad, and push #11.

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Work For Us

We're always looking for reporters, photographers, online associates, and graphic designers for all sections of the paper and magazine. If you'd like to work for us, click here to fill out an interest sheet. We'll get you in touch with the right people.

Write for Spectator

Spectator is always looking for new writers for its news, sports, opinion and arts sections. Writers learn the ins and outs of newspaper writing through a month long training program and have the chance to start getting their work published almost as soon as they step into the office. For more information on getting involved, email editor@columbiaspectator.com.

Take Pictures for Spectator

Spectator publishes several photographs a day in the news, arts and sports section. Photographers have the chance to shoot a variety of assignments and pitch their own stories and photo essays. New photographers can learn the ins and outs of shooting through a training program, and Spectator provides all of its photographers with cameras. For more information on getting involved, email editor@columbiaspectator.com.

Do Design for Spectator

Interested in graphic art? Spectator's pages, graphics and lead art are all designed by talented editors and artists who spend one to two nights in the office a week. Training on inDesign is available. For more information on getting involved, email editor@columbiaspectator.com.

Copy Edit for Spectator

Passionate about grammar? Spectator's pages are editing by a group of dedicated editors and staffers who spend a few hours editing articles every week. For more information on getting involved, email editor@columbiaspectator.com.

Write a Column for Spectator

Spectator selects new columnists for the print and web edition at the end of every semester. Columnists choose a subject matter in which they will specialize and are responsible for submitting a column on that topic once every other week. To apply e-mail opinion@columbiaspectator.com.

Join the Spectator Editorial Board

Help Spectator decide the paper's position on key issues of the day. Join the Editorial Board. Spectator selects members at the end of every semesters, who are responsible for crafting the editorial each day. Experience and knowledge of campus issues are a plus. To apply, fill out this application. Email questions to opinion@columbiaspectator.com.

Become a Spectator Editor

Every December, Spectator selects a new crop of editors for every section. While positions vary from section to section, associate editors run the night for their section, deputy editors work on shaping the long-term vision of a section, and managing editors shape their section both day-to-day and in the long-term. For more information or to apply, email editor@columbiaspectator.com.

Submit tips, questions and events to the news section:

Spectator is always looking for story ideas, opinion submissions, letters to the editor, news tips and event listings.

Spectator's news section covers a wide range of campus events and campus group functions. We are also always looking for students to profile, student accomplishments to highlight, and other interesting news.

Two news editors, a campus editor and a city editor, oversee all content. The section also has six deputy news editors. Deputies are responsible for working with beat chiefs to come up with and assigning stories in a particular area of coverage.

If you have story ideas, notices about events you would like covered, and questions or concerns about articles we run should be directed to our news editors. You can also email story ideas and information about events, to news@columbiaspectator.com.

If you would like to include an event on our events calendar, you can submit it here or email the date, time, and place of the event, along with a short summary of what the event will consist of to events@columbiaspectator.com.

If you have questions or story ideas about specific areas of coverage, you can also get in touch with one of our deputies. Their names and coverage areas are below:

Campus Deputy Editors

Lien Hoang: 916-524-3188, lth2107@columbia.edu
Coverage areas: Student councils, the University Senate, the SDA

David Xia: 339-225-2321, dwx1@columbia.edu
Coverage Areas: Student groups (SGB+ABC), the Office of Multicultural Affairs, Earl Hall, the Intercultural Resource Center

Jacob Schneider: 510-710-1459, jacoblschneider@gmail.com
Coverage Areas: Housing and dining, health services, CCE, University finance, advising, and admissions and financial aid

Joy Resmovits: 516-698-9616, joy.resmovits@gmail.com
Coverage Areas: academics, central administration, graduate schools, and facilities

City Deputy Editors

Daniel Amzallag: 917-658-4656, damzallag@gmail.com
Coverage Areas: Local government

Betsy Morais: 201-362-7372, bim2102@columbia.edu
Coverage Areas: Local community

Submit to 'As I See It'

'As I See It,' a weekly opinion feature where we showcase art and photography of our readers, is always looking for photographs or art. To submit, email a photograph in jpeg form to opinion@columbiaspectator.com

Submit to Letter to the Editor/Corrections

Spectator is committed to accuracy, and we try as hard as possible to fix mistakes when we make them. If you notice something inaccurate or untrue in a story, you can submit a correction here or email us at speccopy@columbia.edu. We will print the correction on the opinion page in the next day's paper. Additionally, we will append a correction to the online version of the story as soon as we receive your correction. If you would like to respond directly to an article we publish in the paper, you can submit a letter to editor of 300 words or less. The opinion section prints letters to the editor several times a week. To submit a letter to the editor, click here or email opinion@columbiaspectator.com.

All letters must include the author's name, telephone number, and Columbia affiliation including academic year, if any. No submissions received after 7:00 p.m. will be considered for the next day's edition.

Spectator reserves the right to edit submissions for length or content with or without the consultation of the author. By submitting a letter or editorial submission to Spectator, you release all publication rights of that work to Spectator Publishing Company, Inc. upon its publication, including but not limited to the right to publish or reproduce the submission, altered or unaltered, in part or in whole, in any and all media, whether affiliated or unaffiliated with the Company, without payment to or consultation with you, in perpetuity.

Ethics

Spectator's reporters and editors subscribe to a complicated set of ethical guidelines that is often poorly explained to readers (and sometimes even to our staff members themselves). What follows is an attempt to explain some of our most important policies. If you have questions about the way the paper works or concerns about how these policies work in theory or in practice, click here or email editor@columbiaspectator.com

Conflict of Interest Policy

At the beginning of every semester, we ask all of our reporters to sign a conflict of interest policy. The goal of the policy is to ensure that writers and editors are reporting the stories they cover in the most fair way possible. To ensure that, we ask that no reporter report on an issue, organization, or cause in which he is personally involved. Additionally, we ask that staff members don't cover the topic they write about for Spectator in another publication, and that they don't use reporting they've done for us in articles they write for other publications.

Our standards for our top editors are more stringent - we ask that editors don't participate in protests, sign petitions, or publicly endorse students running for a student office.

The reasoning behind our policy is this - we want to ensure that our reporters are able to cover issues in an honest way. To do that, we have created a series of rules that we think will allow us to ensure that major problems are avoided beforehand. For our editors, the rules are stricter, because editors handle a wide variety of content every night. We want to make sure that they are able to decide what should run, where it should run, and how it should be edited with as clear a head as possible.

Obviously, this policy does not ensure against all biases, and it does not mean that our coverage is fair and balanced all the time. It does however, try to make writers and editors aware of problems they might face before they face them.

See our complete Conflict of Interest policy here.

Chinese Wall Policy

Like many newspapers, Spectator maintains a complete divide between its opinion and news sections. Writers who write for news may not write for the opinion section. Further, news writers may not contribute ideas or facts to an opinion piece. Opinion writers however may clarify facts with an editor.

The reasoning for this policy is similar to the reasoning behind our Conflict of Interest policy - we want to keep opinion and bias out of our news coverage, and we think it would be difficult to do this if our news reporters were also writing for the opinion section.

See our complete Conflict of Interest policy here.

Rights of the Interview-ee

It is the responsibility of our reporters to accurately and appropriately report what is said to them. However, we recognize that sometimes this doesn't happen. In an effort to address these concerns, we've drafted a list of rights those being interviewed have - we hope that these both improve the accuracy of our paper and also make those we interview more comfortable and confident in our reporting.

If you are being interviewed, you have the right to:

• Ask a reporter to bring a tape recorder with him or her and record the interview to ensure he gets your quotes right
• Ask the reporter to read quotes you have given him or her at the end of the interview
• Ask for and understand the premise of an article you are being interviewed for
• Respond directly to any charges any person has lodged against you or your organization on the record
• Contact and speak directly with one of our editors if you have any concerns or questions about the article

We do not permit our reporters to send quotes to interviewees after an interview is finished or to send drafts of an article before it runs in the paper. We maintain this policy for a few reasons - the main reason is that it is often difficult to determine after the fact what was actually being said. Addition what was actually said.

If you are concerned about an interview or have questions about how your words will be used, email editor@columbiaspectator.com.

Rights of a person who submits to Spectator

Writers who submit letters to the editor to Spectator have a right to see the final version of their letter before it runs in the paper. The editor can cut the letter and edit it for clarity.

Writers who submit opinion pieces to Spectator have the right to see the final draft of their piece before it runs in the paper. Additionally, writers have the right to work with an editor on their piece. No changes should be made without seeking the author's consent. Once your piece runs in Spectator, it becomes property of Spectator Publishing Company. It cannot be reprinted in any other publication without permission, which you can receive by emailing editor@columbiaspectator.com.

Mistakes: how we make them, how we correct them, and why

We'll be the first to tell you that Spectator is far from perfect. We make mistakes, big and small, all the time. We're trying to get better though.

Once a story is assigned, our reporter is responsible for reporting and then checking the whole story over and confirming that the names, statistics, quotes and explanations are accurate. The articles are then submitted to our news editors and copy editors, who review articles and check facts. In a perfect world, every name spelling and title is checked twice, along with all statistics, club names and titles, and dates. The story then is reviewed by our news editors, who have a clear understanding of our coverage and can add context and confirm accuracy.

Once a story runs, we hear about mistakes in two ways - our reporters or editors are contacted directly by their sources, or a reader reports a mistake directly to Spectator at spec copy@columbiaspectator.com. Once we confirm that we made a factual editor, we write a correction, which runs in the correction box the next day on the left-hand side of the opinion page. Additionally, we append the correction to the story online.

We can only catch mistakes with our readers' help. If you see something incorrect in a story, email spec at copy@columbiaspectator.com.