Columbia Daily Spectator

History

The Columbia Spectator was founded in 1877 by Frederick William Holls and H.G. Paine. Also serving on the paper's first editorial board was William Barclay Parsons. Several attempts at student journalism were made before the Spectator. The first student publication formed at Columbia was the short lived Philolexian Observer, founded in 1813. The Cap and Gown was founded in 1867 as both a student newspaper and literary publication. It was renamed to the Acta Columbiana in 1873, and was absorbed by the Spectator in 1885, which also took its motto, A Studentibus Studentibusque.

The Spectator was first published as a fortnightly. In 1898 it became a weekly, and a year later began to be published semi-weekly, before finally becoming a daily paper in 1902.

In April 2014, Spectator announced it would become the first Ivy League newspaper to cut its daily print for a weekly distribution to focus on digital content and increase revenue. The plan was approved shortly thereafter by the Board of Trustees, passing 7 to 4. John R. MacArthur, one of the members of the board, resigned in protest of the decision, but the paper did see the expected revenue increase.

Organization

Spectator is published by Spectator Publishing Company Inc, an independent 501(c)(3) corporation.** Spectator Publishing Company was formed in 1962 and has been independent of Columbia University since then. The president of the Spectator Publishing Company also serves as the editor in chief of the Columbia Daily Spectator.

Spectators writing departments, each headed by one or two editors, include university news, city news, sports, arts and culture, opinion, and lifestyle. The other non-writing departments, also headed by their own respective editors, include photography, illustrations, graphics, audio, video, and copy. The Business & Innovations departments, which oversee the newspaper's advertising, finances, software development, and alumni relations, are headed by the publisher. Spectator also runs The Eye which is a magazine focused on publishing long-form feature articles and essays.

The paper is currently run by the 149th managing board. First-time writers at Columbia begin their time at the paper with a 3 to 4 month trainee semester, during which they learn the basics of writing an article and publish their first articles. Each November and December, students run for positions at the paper, a process that takes nearly a month. They begin by shadowing, or sitting with the current editors or associate editors and learning the editing process. Next they write proposals for their desired position. The students then take editing tests created by their department editor that test them on fundamentals. Finally, they complete the Turkeyshoots process with an interview. The results of the process, including the new managing board, are announced in mid-December, the weekend before finals.

Recent spinoffs

In 2005, Spec started printing La Página, a weekly flyer in Spanish with translations of some of the week's English content most relevant to neighborhood readers. It folded within the year.

The next year, in February 2006, the paper launched a series of blogs, SpecBlogs. It was the third Ivy League paper to do this, after The Harvard Crimson's Sports Blog (December 2005) and The Daily Pennsylvanian's TheBuzz (January 2006).

In September 2006, Spectator staff launched The Eye, a weekly magazine featuring investigative pieces and commentary on Columbia and New York City. The name of The Eye relates both to the fact that one "spectates" with it and urban theorist Jane Jacobs' notion that "eyes on the street" help keep neighborhoods safe.

In March 2010, Spec launched a new blog, Spectrum, which is updated several times a day with breaking news, columns, and features.

In January 2018, Spec launched a branded content studio, Spectator Brand Studios. It was the second Ivy League paper to do this, after the Harvard Crimson.

Controversies

In October 1995, the newspaper published an antisemitic column by a senior student.In the controversial column, which The New York Times reported on, the student wrote: "I single out Jews because their oppression of blacks cannot go unnoticed while they disguise their evilness under the skirts and costumes of the Rabbi," A number of Jewish students called for a boycott of the newspaper.

Spectator has been criticized publicly by staff members over the years for obscuring its election procedures. On October 16, 2009, Ryan Bubinski, then the online editor of Spec, shut down the website in protest of a constitutional violation. The website was restored on the 18th, and Bubinski left the staff of the newspaper. The lack of a constitution brought renewed protests in 2018 when concerns over potential prior misconduct of a staffer surfaced during the Turkeyshoots process. The Corporate Board of Spectator followed an internal policy to investigate the claims, which was not made public to staffers. Following the Turkeyshoots season, the majority of the newspaper's Sports section resigned in protest.

In 2018 and 2019, work by journalists at the paper played an important role in uncovering the plagiarism scandal around Charles K. Armstrong, a professor of history at Columbia University. It also, in 2019, found that a number of professors accused or found guilty of sexual misconduct remained on campus, breaking news that English professor Michael Golston had been found guilty of sexually assaulting a student.

Recent leadership

Notable ''Spec'' alumni

• Rohit Aggarwala, Commissioner of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection
• David Alpern, former senior writer and current contributing editor for Newsweek
• Lou Antonelli, Texas-based science fiction and fantasy author
• R.W. Apple, senior staff writer for The New York Times, serving as a foreign correspondent for over 30 years
• Roone Arledge, sportscaster and head of ABC News; created 20/20 and Nightline in addition to Monday Night Football
• Naftali Bendavid political reporter for The Wall Street Journal and author of The Thumpin': How Rahm Emanuel and the Democrats Learned to Be Ruthless and Ended the Republican Revolution
• Arnold Beichman, conservative commentator
• Damien Bona, former Daily Spectator film critic, film historian and co-author of "Inside Oscar: The Unofficial History of the Academy Awards"
• Katherine Boo, writer for The New Yorker and winner of the Pulitzer Prize
• Marcus Brauchli, former executive editor of The Washington Post and former managing editor of The Wall Street Journal
• Robert Neil Butler, geriatrician
• Ben Casselman, economics reporter for The New York Times
• Bennett Cerf, co-founder of Random House
• Isadora Cerullo, Olympic rugby player
• Ariana Cha, The Washington Post
• Elizabeth Cohen, CNN reporter
• Matthew Cooper, Portfolio columnist
• Matthew Continetti, writer at The Weekly Standard
• David Denby, staff writer for The New Yorker
• I.A.L. Diamond, screenwriter
• Morris Dickstein, noted literary critic and professor at CUNY
• Joe Ferullo, Vice President of Programming and Development for CBS Paramount Domestic Television
• Max Frankel, former executive editor of The New York Times
• Ruth Franklin (née Ruth Halikman), senior literary editor at The New Republic
• Robert Friedman, editor-at-large at Bloomberg
• Julius Genachowski, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission
• Robert Giroux, publisher
• Ralph J. Gleason, music critic
• Neil Gorsuch, U.S. Supreme Court Justice
• Alfred Harcourt, publisher
• Reed Harris, expelled for 20 days, author of King Football, journalist, civil servant, target of McCarthyism
• Frederick William Holls, lawyer, publicist, Secretary of the United States delegation to the Hague Peace Conference
• Langston Hughes, poet, novelist and playwright
• Dan Janison, reporter and columnist for New York Newsday
• David Kaczynski, younger brother of Ted Kaczynski
• Jack Kerouac, Beat Generation novelist
• Bob Klapisch, sportswriter for The Star-Ledger
• Vi Kyuin Wellington Koo, Chinese diplomat
• Adam B. Kushner, editor of the Outlook section at The Washington Post
• Tony Kushner, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright; author of Angels in America
• Jerry Landauer, Worth Bingham Prize recipient, journalist at The Wall Street Journal
• Arthur Lazarus, Jr., attorney for Indian tribes
• Jonathan Lemire, host of MSNBC's Way Too Early and Politico's White House bureau chief
• Arthur M. Louis, former long-time writer with Fortune magazine, free-lance writer and author
• John R. MacArthur, publisher of Harper's magazine
• Herman J. Mankiewicz, screenwriter
• Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Academy award-winning movie director
• Sam Marchiano, sportscaster, formerly of MLB.com
• Nekesa Mumbi Moody, editorial director of The Hollywood Reporter
• Graham Moore, Academy Award-winning screenwriter
• Michael Mukasey, former US Attorney General
• Pat Mullins, Chairman of Virginia Republican Party
• Michael Musto, New York City journalist and media gadfly
• Bernard W. Nussbaum, former White House counsel to President Bill Clinton
• Jim Ogle, longtime sportswriter for The Star-Ledger and chronicler of the New York Yankees
• Beto O'Rourke, U.S. Representative. Wrote for the Spectator under the name Robert O'Rourke.
• William Barclay Parsons, engineer, founder of Parsons Binckerhoff
• Jed Perl, author and art critic of The New Republic
• Joshua Prager, author and previous special senior projects reporter for The Wall Street Journal
• Robert Pollack (biologist), author and professor of biological sciences
• Gerald M. Pomper, political scientist at Rutgers University
• Ted Rall, political cartoonist
• Ian Rapoport, sportswriter and television analyst, NFL Network
• Cecilia Reyes, journalist who reported on Nutellagate, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting in 2022
• Roger Rubin, sportswriter, New York Daily News
• Harriet Ryan, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist
• Rob Saliterman, former spokesman for former President George W. Bush
• Nick Schifrin, correspondent for PBS NewsHour and former foreign correspondent for ABC News and Al Jazeera America
• Zach Sims, co-founder of Codecademy
• Warren St. John, The New York Times reporter and author
• Nick Summers, Bloomberg Businessweek editor and co-founder of IvyGate
• Lee C. Townsend, News Editor, CBS Evening News (Cronkite & Rather)
• Richard Wald, former president of NBC
• Steven Waldman, journalist and founder of Beliefnet.com
• Michael Waldman, speechwriter and advisor for President Bill Clinton
• Sharon Waxman, The New York Times reporter
• James Wechsler, chief editor of the New York Post
• Beverly Weintraub, Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial writer
• Lis Wiehl, legal commentator for Fox News
• Mason Wiley, co-author of The Official Preppy Handbook
• Beau Willimon, creator, producer and writer of U.S. miniseries House of Cards
• Herman Wouk, author
• Paul Zimmerman, columnist for Sports Illustrated (as "Dr. Z")

References

References

1. (August 2017)
2. Matthews, Brander. (1904). "A History of Columbia University: 1754–1904". Macmillan Company.
3. "Columbia student paper plans to drop daily print edition for a weekly distribution". Politico Media.
4. "Harper's Publisher Rick MacArthur Quits Columbia Spectator Board Because the Internet".
5. "Spectator Publishing Company Inc overview from Guidestar.org". Guidestar.org.
6. "Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax; 2012 IRS Form 990 of Spectator Publishing Co Inc".
7. "The Buzz".
8. (1 January 1997). [https://www.adl.org/resources/report/schooled-hate-anti-semitism-campus Schooled in Hate: Anti-Semitism on Campus] ADL. Retrieved on 12 December 2025
9. Haberman, Clyde (1 November 1995). [https://www.nytimes.com/1995/11/01/nyregion/nyc-campus-newspaper-s-excursion-into-a-bitter-free-speech-debate.html NYC; Campus Newspaper's Excursion Into a Bitter Free-Speech Debate] ''The New York Times''. Retrieved on 12 December 2025
10. "Spectator website takedown 2009".
11. "Editor's Note of 2009 Website Shutdown".
12. "The Blue and White - Columbia Daily Spectator Staff Gutted by Resignations".
13. "History professor Charles Armstrong found guilty of plagiarism, to retire in 2020".
14. "Up against the invincible: A professor was convicted of sexual misconduct. Why is he still on campus?".
15. (17 January 2020). "Take Five with Jonathan Zimmerman '83".
16. Hevesi, Dennis. (2012-02-09). "Damien Bona Dies at 56; Creator of Guide for Oscar Buffs". [[The New York Times]].
17. "Adam B. Kushner". The Washington Post.