The Daily Eastern News is more than just a student newspaper, especially for those charged with putting a new edition in the hands of the EIU community every weekday morning.
For them, it’s serious business.
“It’s a lot of responsibility,” said Katie Smith, the paper’s current editor-in-chief. “For a lot of the things we report on, we’re the first source of information for people. So we do take it seriously; it’s a lot of pressure.”
The DEN, as it’s commonly referenced in the newsroom and across campus, makes EIU the smallest four-year public university in Illinois – and most likely the nation – with a daily newspaper. It’s published Monday through Friday during the fall and spring semesters and scales back to an online edition during the summer months. While the university houses the newspaper offices at Buzzard Hall, the publication itself is independent and therefore doesn’t see its content controlled by the university in any way.
It’s also totally student-staffed and student-run – with the exception of one university employee who operates the printing press each evening. While Lola Burnham, a Department of Journalism faculty member, serves an advisory role, her feedback comes after each day’s paper has already gone to print.
“So there's actually no advisor contact with the process of actually making the paper,&r