The Badger Herald

About The Badger Herald

The Badger Herald is one of the nation's largest fully independent student newspapers, published in Madison, Wisconsin for the University of Wisconsin–Madison community. Founded in 1969, it was born in the tumult of the Vietnam era as an alternative voice on one of America's most politically charged campuses. More than five decades later, it publishes monthly print editions and daily online coverage, competing head-to-head with its crosstown campus rival — a two-newspaper rivalry that staffers on both sides credit with making each paper better.

Founding: an experiment in independence

In 1969, pictures of protests covered the front pages of nearly every newspaper in America, and Madison was at the epicenter. The University of Wisconsin's primary student newspaper, The Daily Cardinal — founded in 1892 and named for the university's colors — had editorialized against the Vietnam War and developed close ties to leaders of the radical campus protest movement. Four students who felt the campus needed an alternative voice gathered at the Brathaus, a bar on State Street, and debated late into the night over what to do.

The four — Patrick S. Korten, Nick Loniello, Mike Kelly, and Wade Smith — considered reviving an older student magazine, Inside and Outlook, that had died out in the early 1960s, but decided they wanted something more serious: a weekly independent newspaper that would run on advertising revenue and focus on issues facing UW students and the Madison community. After several months of fundraising, scrounging for desks and typewriters, and renting a walk-up office two blocks from Bascom Hill, the first issue of The Badger Herald hit the stands on September 10, 1969.

Korten, the paper's first editor-in-chief, declared the end of the Daily Cardinal's 77-year monopoly in his opening editorial, writing that it was time for a truly independent student newspaper at Wisconsin — one that would compete in the open marketplace and make its editorial and business decisions on market terms rather than sheltering behind "official student newspaper" status. According to David Maraniss's best-selling book "They Marched into Sunlight," the paper's early days were quietly supported by behind-the-scenes funding from editors at Reader's Digest — a detail that underscored the Herald's arrival as part of a broader conservative reaction to campus radicalism.

The Sterling Hall bombing

The Herald's mission was tested within its first year. On August 24, 1970, anti-war activists detonated a truck bomb outside the university's Army Mathematics Research Center in Sterling Hall, damaging several campus buildings and killing a postdoctoral physics researcher. The Daily Cardinal published an editorial that appeared to sympathize with the bombers; Loniello and the Herald's editors saw the bombing as a tragic violation of the university's academic values and wrote a forceful editorial condemning the Cardinal's stance as plainly wrong.

The episode crystallized the Herald's identity: a paper willing to challenge the dominant campus ideology, even — especially — when doing so was unpopular. While the Daily Cardinal would later moderate under pressure from the UW Board of Regents, declining advertising revenue, and the fading of 1960s radicalism, the Herald had already established itself as Madison's durable second campus voice.

Offices and growth

The Herald's early offices were at 638 State Street, on the second floor; the paper later moved to 550 State Street in the late 1970s, then to 326 W. Gorham Street in 1998 — where editors kept the original desks and a homemade light board as relics of the paper's scrappy origins. Its current offices are at 152 W. Johnson Street, Suite 202, in downtown Madison.

The paper nearly died in its first year for lack of advertising, as Korten told the Wisconsin State Journal at the time. But it survived, and it eventually surpassed the Daily Cardinal in print circulation — a remarkable outcome for an upstart founded on a barroom dare. The paper is printed by Capital Newspapers, Inc., the Madison company behind the Wisconsin State Journal and The Capital Times.

A two-newspaper campus

UW–Madison remains one of the few American universities with two competing student newspapers, and the rivalry shapes both newsrooms. Staffers cover the same beats and many of the same stories, and the competition for scoops and advertising dollars gives students an experience of the newspaper industry that one-newspaper campuses cannot replicate. Editors at both papers have said the arrangement makes each publication stronger — the Herald and the Cardinal keep each other honest.

That dynamic traces directly to the Herald's founding premise: that a campus is better served by competing independent voices than by a single official paper. More than fifty years on, the experiment Korten announced in 1969 is still running.

Coverage and sections

The Herald covers the full range of UW–Madison life: campus administration and the Board of Regents, student government (ASM), academics, and research at one of the nation's top public universities. Sports coverage follows the Wisconsin Badgers — football at Camp Randall, men's basketball at the Kohl Center, hockey, volleyball, and more — while arts and entertainment reporting covers Madison's music, film, and cultural scenes.

The opinion section carries the paper's historic DNA: editorials, columns, and letters that reflect the interests and debates of the university community. From its founding as a conservative counterweight, the Herald's editorial stance has evolved, but its mission statement still emphasizes objective news, entertaining sports and arts coverage, and insightful editorial positions — alongside training the next generation of student journalists.

Print and digital operations

The Herald publishes monthly print editions distributed free across campus and the Madison area, with daily news coverage online at badgerherald.com. The shift from its original weekly print rhythm to monthly print plus continuous digital coverage mirrors the broader transformation of college media, but the paper's financial model remains what it was at the founding: an independent paper sustained by advertising and market competition rather than university subsidy.

The newsroom recruits reporters, columnists, photographers, videographers, copy editors, and designers from across the student body, with dedicated departments for editorial, business, advertising, public relations, and outreach. Letters to the editor remain a staple of reader engagement.

50 years of independence

In the fall of 2019, the Herald celebrated its 50th anniversary with a party at Madison's Overture Center for the Arts, open to alumni and current staffers, featuring dinner, speakers, and dancing. The Wisconsin Newspaper Association marked the milestone as well, noting how the paper had grown from a near-failed experiment into one of the country's largest independent student newspapers. Across five decades, through relocations, dozens of editors, and countless late nights, the paper's own anniversary coverage identified two traits that never faltered: independence and integrity.

A training ground for journalists

Herald alumni have gone on to careers across journalism, public relations, and public life — Korten himself became a congressional journalist and staffer before moving into public relations consulting in Washington, D.C. The newsroom's emphasis on real-world experience, from beat reporting to advertising sales, has made it a launching pad for students pursuing media careers, and its alumni network remains closely tied to the paper.

Reading the Badger Herald

The Badger Herald publishes monthly print editions and daily online coverage at its official website, badgerherald.com. Print copies are distributed free across the University of Wisconsin–Madison campus and the surrounding Madison community. Letters to the editor and story tips are welcome from students, faculty, and readers — continuing a conversation that began over beers at the Brathaus in 1969.