The Daily Aztec

About The Daily Aztec

The Daily Aztec is the not-for-profit, independent student newspaper of San Diego State University in San Diego, California, and one of the oldest student publications in the western United States. Established in 1913, when the school was still the San Diego Normal School, the paper has published through more than a century of the university's history under a series of names — the Normal News Weekly, the Paper Lantern, The Aztec, and, since 1960, The Daily Aztec. Completely student-run and financially and editorially independent of the university, it serves a student population of more than 35,000 and a faculty and staff of more than 4,000, publishing at thedailyaztec.com and in print with a circulation of about 10,000. In 2023, the paper marked its 110th anniversary.

Founding in 1913

In the fall of 1913, the student body of the then-San Diego Normal School voted to begin publishing a four-page weekly campus newspaper. The first edition premiered on November 26, 1913, as a four-page tabloid under the name the Normal News Weekly, its front page carrying the headline "Supervisors and Student Teachers Have Meeting." The vote reflected the ambitions of a young teachers' college — founded in 1897 — whose students wanted a journal of their own. The paper has been in publication ever since, making it one of the longest-running student newspapers in California and a continuous witness to the transformation of a small normal school into one of the largest universities in the state.

A Century of Names

The paper's title has changed several times across its history, tracking the institution's own growth. In 1921, the Normal News Weekly was renamed the Paper Lantern. In 1925, when students adopted the Aztec moniker for the school's identity, the publication followed suit and became The Aztec. The paper's popularity eventually demanded more frequent publication, and in 1960 it shifted to daily publication, becoming The Daily Aztec; the inaugural daily edition appeared on Friday, September 23, 1960, with Joan Plouride's feature "New Judiciary System Offered to AS Council" on the cover. Over the years the title took several interim forms — the San Diego Daily Aztec, the San Diego State Daily Aztec, the State College Aztec — and summer issues appeared under names including the San Diego Summer Aztec and the Summer Aztec. Since the early 1970s, The Daily Aztec has been the paper's settled name. The university's digital collections preserve the complete run from the first 1913 edition of the Normal News Weekly through the current Daily Aztec.

Independence and Student Control

The Daily Aztec is a not-for-profit organization that is financially and editorially independent of San Diego State University, receiving no state funding. The paper relies solely on advertising sales to fund its operations, printing costs, and staff. Its staff of more than 100 is unique in that it contains no faculty: all of the editors, writers, designers, photographers, and advertising staff are students, making the organization truly student-run. Positions include section editors, entertainment writers, advertisement sales staff, and copy chiefs. This complete student control — rare even among independent college papers — is the foundation of the paper's identity as an autonomous voice on campus.

Print and Digital Editions

The Daily Aztec publishes on a regular basis when the university is in session, excluding holidays. After its 1960 conversion to daily publication, the paper's frequency varied over the decades with the economics of print; as of the fall of 2013, it appeared twice a week. The paper is published as a tabloid with a circulation of about 10,000, and its media kit has described it as the second-largest publication in San Diego, publishing across print and online to reach students across campus. Its website, thedailyaztec.com, carries the paper's daily digital content and hosts sections including news, sports, arts and culture, and opinion, along with the paper's historical archive pages.

Coverage Areas

The Daily Aztec covers campus news, SDSU athletics — including the nationally prominent Aztecs basketball and football programs — arts and culture, and student opinion. Its arts and culture coverage has itself a long history within the paper: in the early 2000s the section was called "Tempo," in the 1990s it went by "Arts and Entertainment" and functioned for a time as a separate newspaper called "Stanza," and before an arts beat even existed, a "social scene" section highlighted student organization events. The section's evolution — from coverage of small folk artists to reviews of international stars — mirrors the growth of San Diego's cultural scene and the university's rising national profile. The paper's news coverage has documented the university's landmark moments, from presidential visits to the establishment of pioneering academic programs.

A Witness to University History

Because it has published continuously since 1913, The Daily Aztec's archives amount to a history of San Diego State University itself. The paper's reporters covered former President John F. Kennedy's historic 1963 commencement address at Aztec Bowl, where Viejas Arena now stands. Decades later, the paper's writers were present when Lech Walesa, the former president of Poland and human-rights activist, made his first major U.S. presentation at SDSU in 2006. The paper explained to campus readers the significance of SDSU's pioneering academic programs — the first women's studies program in the country, and among the first LGBT studies and Latino studies programs. During World War II, when the paper was still a four-page weekly called The Aztec, it also published a newsletter for students serving in the Armed Services, maintaining the campus community's connection to its members at war.

The Centennial

In 2013, The Daily Aztec celebrated its 100th anniversary, an occasion the university marked with a retrospective on the paper's century of reporting and a gala event held on May 13 at the Parma Payne Goodall Alumni Center. The centennial celebration emphasized that the paper had covered the university's landmark events across ten decades while documenting the institution's news and history as it happened. Ten years later, on November 26, 2023, the paper marked its 110th anniversary — 110 years to the day after the first edition of the Normal News Weekly — with a retrospective on the evolution of its arts and culture coverage across the decades.

Awards and Recognition

The Daily Aztec's journalism has been recognized by professional press organizations. In 2017, the organization received first place for best college newspaper from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists, with several staff members also receiving individual awards. The honor reflected the professional quality of the paper's student-produced reporting, photography, and design in one of the country's most competitive regional media markets. The paper's centennial and its SPJ recognition together affirmed its standing as a leading student publication in Southern California.

Dave Hasemeyer and the Pulitzer Connection

Among the paper's most distinguished alumni is Dave Hasemeyer, who served as editor-in-chief of The Daily Aztec in 1978–79 and went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 2013 while working for Inside Climate News, the nonprofit news organization covering climate and environmental issues. Hasemeyer's path from the SDSU student newsroom to journalism's highest honor exemplifies the paper's role as a training ground for professional journalists — a role it has played for generations of students who learned reporting, editing, and newsroom leadership by producing a real newspaper for a major university.

Newsroom and Organization

The Daily Aztec's newsroom is staffed entirely by students, with more than 100 members across editorial, photography, design, digital, and advertising departments. Section editors lead coverage of news, sports, arts and culture, and opinion; copy chiefs oversee editing and style; and the advertising staff sells the ads that fund the operation. The paper's offices serve as the hub of student media activity on the SDSU campus, and the organization recruits new staff each semester from across the university's colleges. For many participants, The Daily Aztec is the center of their college experience and the foundation of careers in journalism, communications, and media.

Legacy

From the four-page Normal News Weekly of November 1913 to the modern Daily Aztec of the 2020s, the paper has been the continuous student voice of San Diego State University for more than 110 years — through world wars, the civil rights era, the university's rise to national prominence in academics and athletics, and the digital transformation of journalism. Independent, not-for-profit, and entirely student-run, it remains what its founders voted to create in the fall of 1913: a newspaper by the students, for the students, chronicling the life of the university and the community around it. Its complete archived run, preserved by the university's digital collections, stands as one of the richest documentary records of a California university's history.