The Technician

About The Technician

Technician is the student newspaper of North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina, and one of the oldest continuously published student newspapers in the American South. Its first edition appeared on February 1, 1920, and it has been published continuously ever since — through the Great Depression, World War II, the civil rights era, and the digital transformation of journalism. Today the paper is published weekly on Thursdays during the academic year, with stories published online throughout the week at technicianonline.com. Funded by in-paper and online advertising and produced by NC State students as part of the university's Student Media program, Technician operates from the Witherspoon Student Center and marked its centennial in 2020.

The Red and White and the Road to 1920

NC State's first campus newspaper was The Red & White, a collection of essays in pamphlet form sponsored by the athletics department, published from 1899 to 1917. It was disbanded when the United States entered the Great War in Europe and the State College campus was turned into a military training institute. When student veterans returned from the war in the fall of 1919, they wanted a vehicle to share important news — something they had grown accustomed to in the military. As the paper's first editor-in-chief, Marion Francis Trice, wrote in the inaugural February 1, 1920, edition: "College life without its journal is blank." Trice set out, in his own words, to create "a real humdinger" of a college newspaper, and with first business manager John Guy Stuart and a small staff, he launched Technician on February 1, 1920.

The First Issue and Early Decades

The first issue of Technician appeared on February 1, 1920, featuring coverage of the college's extensive construction projects, news about the Electrical Engineering Society, and even some light verse. The paper rolled along for more than four decades as a journal for its students. Writers and editors mostly volunteered or received a small stipend to produce the paper, with the help of the university print shop. There was no journalism school from which to draw a regular staff: in the 1933 consolidation of the state's colleges into the University of North Carolina system, NC State was assigned engineering, agriculture, and textiles, while UNC-Chapel Hill retained the schools of journalism, law, and the traditional liberal arts. Technician's staff was therefore drawn from engineers, agriculturalists, and scientists — a circumstance that gave the paper a distinctive character and proved, over the decades, no barrier to producing outstanding journalists.

A Century of Continuous Publication

Technician has been published continuously since its first edition in 1920, a record of more than a century without interruption. The paper's frequency evolved with the times: originally published biweekly, then weekly, then three times weekly, it became a daily paper in the fall of 1988. It went to five days a week in the early 1990s. In 2014, facing the loss of advertising revenue and reduced student fees — Student Media was down about $100,000 in non-fee revenue in the preceding fiscal year — the paper eliminated its Friday edition, cutting frequency from five to four days a week and shifting its "Football Friday" coverage to Thursday issues. Since 2018, the newspaper has been published on Thursdays, with stories published online throughout the week at technicianonline.com. On February 1, 2020, Technician celebrated its 100th anniversary, an occasion marked by NC State News, the university libraries, and the alumni magazine, with the university's Special Collections holding the complete run of the newspaper's issues.

Organization and Student Media

Technician is part of NC State Student Media, the university's student media program, and is funded by in-paper and online advertising rather than by direct university subsidy. NC State's Student Media Board of Directors oversees Student Media, which includes Technician, other student-led publications, and the college radio station WKNC-FM. The paper's sister newspaper is The Nubian Message, the campus newspaper serving NC State's African American community. The paper is headquartered in the Witherspoon Student Center on the Raleigh campus. Like the other publications in the Student Media program — the Agromeck yearbook, published since 1903, and the Windhover literary magazine, published since 1954 — Technician has had to adapt its publishing model to the economics of modern college media, but it has done so while maintaining continuous publication.

Print and Digital Editions

Today's Technician is a weekly print newspaper published on Thursdays during the academic year, in a modified tabloid format, complemented by a digital edition at technicianonline.com where stories are published throughout the week. The website's sections include News, Sports, Opinion, Features, Obituaries, and Classifieds, reflecting the full range of a campus newspaper's service to its community. The complete archive of the paper's print issues is freely available online through the NC State University Libraries' digital collections, making a century of student journalism — from the 1920 inaugural issue to the present — accessible to researchers, alumni, and the public.

Coverage Areas

Technician covers the life of North Carolina State University and the Raleigh community: university news and administration, student government, campus life, Wolfpack athletics, arts and culture, and opinion. As the newspaper of a major land-grant research university with strengths in engineering, agriculture, and technology, the paper has long reported on the intersection of campus research and public life. Its sports coverage follows one of the Atlantic Coast Conference's most passionate fan bases, and its opinion pages have hosted generations of student debate. The paper's reporting has also documented the university's own history as it happened — from wartime mobilization to desegregation to the research triumphs of the modern era.

Notable Alumni

Despite having no journalism school to draw on, Technician has produced more than its share of successful graduates in media and public life. Roy H. Park, the paper's 1931 editor-in-chief, went on to build a vast media enterprise of more than 50 newspapers, radio, and television stations as the founder of Park Communications, and used his media fortune to create the Park Foundation, which funds dozens of NC State's most prestigious academic scholarships. William C. Friday, class of 1941, became the leader of the University of North Carolina system from 1956 to 1986, one of the most consequential figures in American public higher education. Chris Hondros, a Technician photographer, became an acclaimed conflict photographer and a 2003 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Richard Curtis, class of 1972, was a founder and managing editor of graphics and photography for USA Today. Joseph Galarneau, class of 1989, became chief operating officer and digital general manager of Newsweek and The Daily Beast. Ted Kemp became digital managing editor for CNBC International and co-author of a memoir of the Iraq War. Alvin M. Fountain became a noted college historian. The alumni magazine's centennial reporting captured the depth of feeling these graduates retain for the paper: as one alumnus, Washington Post art director Dwuan June, class of 1990, put it, the history of the Technician shows that NC State is a place where anyone can find their path — whether in a materials engineering lab, in the library stacks, or on the third floor of a student center, where the paper long made its home.

The Centennial

Technician's 100th anniversary on February 1, 2020, was celebrated across the university. NC State News published "A Century of Readership," recounting the paper's founding by returning veterans and its evolution into a modern student media operation. The university libraries highlighted the paper's complete archived run, and the alumni magazine devoted a feature to the memories of Technician alumni, recalling the old production rooms with their hot wax machines and typesetters, the worn-out couches and battered desks with typewriters on the third floor of the old Student Center. The centennial confirmed Technician's place as an institution within the university — older than nearly every academic program on campus and a continuous witness to a century of NC State history.

Adapting to the Digital Era

Like student newspapers across the country, Technician has spent the past two decades adapting to the collapse of print advertising and the migration of readers online. The 2014 decision to eliminate the Friday edition — driven by falling national and campus advertising — was part of a broader retrenchment across NC State's student publications that also affected the Agromeck yearbook, the Windhover literary magazine, and The Nubian Message. The paper's response was to concentrate its resources on a weekly print edition built around deeper stories and a continuously updated website. The strategy has preserved the paper's core function: a student-produced newspaper, published without interruption since 1920, serving one of the nation's largest universities.

Legacy

From Marion Francis Trice's inaugural declaration that "college life without its journal is blank" to the modern newsroom at technicianonline.com, Technician has embodied the idea that a university needs its students to tell its story. Produced by engineers and designers as often as by aspiring journalists, funded by advertising, overseen by a student media board, and archived in full by the university libraries, the paper stands as a century-long record of North Carolina State University — and as proof that a student newspaper can thrive without a journalism school behind it. As it enters its second century, Technician remains what it has been since February 1, 1920: the student newspaper of NC State, published continuously, by students, for students.