The Phillipian
The Phillipian is the student-run weekly newspaper of the American preparatory school of Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. It covers school news including controversies, campus events, sports, faculty appointments, graduations, and academic programs, and it serves as a training ground for students to learn about journalism. Many of its student contributors have gone on to careers in journalism and the media. The publication aims to foster a literary and journalistic spirit among its student contributors. It is regarded as the oldest preparatory newspaper in the country and is in its th year of continuous publication. It publishes  a digital version as well as archives of past papers, and publishes on various social media platforms. The paper edition is printed weekly during the school year, and there is a summer edition as well. The publication gets revenue from an endowment fund as well as advertising revenues from local businesses, and students run the paper as a business. While the paper has faculty advisers, all editorial decisions are made by student editors, and it is editorially independent from the academy's administration. In 2017 the printed version is 12–16 pages long and has five regular sections: news, commentary, sports , arts and features, and is distributed every Friday. History. Beginnings. The first edition of "The Phillipian" was published on July 28, 1857, making it the oldest preparatory school newspaper in America. The initial motto was "Justitia fiat ruat caelum", a Latin phrase meaning "Let justice be done though the heavens fall"; later the motto became "Veritas super omnia" or "Truth above all". In the decades after 1857, there is no evidence of publication until October 19, 1878, when "The Phillipian" began regular publication, making it the second-oldest continuously published preparatory school paper. The first masthead listed editor-in-chief  Edward S. Beach and nine associates. In the 1880s, the paper covered issues such as disputes between students and the town of Andover, usually siding with the students, and covered the ongoing rivalry with Exeter and its paper. It described initiation rites of Andover's secret societies: Andover's secret societies had become recognized by the school, as the paper reported in 1884. Early years. Sports coverage was important in these early years, and reporting was generally skewed in Andover's favor. Claude Moore Feuss, a former head of School (then called headmaster) who published a history of the academy , described the Phillipian's coverage of rival teams as "ungenerous to opponents". The paper described the pitching of student baseball pitcher Alfred Stearns as follows: Stearns was a "Phillipian" editor who later became headmaster. In 1885, an editorial advocated against hiring a local professional baseball pitcher to help Andover's baseball team win against the town; it was a matter of "school honesty and honor", wrote the student. The paper sometimes urged students to have greater participation in sports: "The Phillipian" touted the scholarship of the school's athletes, reporting that athletics and scholarship were not mutually antagonistic as had  been commonly thought, but that "football is an intellectual game, not merely a test of physical strength, and that the active scholarship rule is favorable not only to scholarship, but also to football success." Twentieth century. The paper's length was typically four pages, although at one point it expanded to eight pages, but was scaled back. In the early 1900s, page size was increased. From 1907 to 1917, a committee of faculty members supervised the publication nominally, by approving the selection of student editors. In 1974, following the merger of Abbot Academy and Phillips Academy, the paper's offices  were located at Evans Hall. One privilege of working on "The Phillipian" during those days was being allowed to stay out late on Wednesday nights: Endowment Campaign. In 2013, "The Phillipian" launched a campaign to establish an endowment to stabilize the publication's finances. The one-year campaign was spearheaded by twenty-one Phillipian alumni including journalist Gary Lee and Microsoft intellectual property counsel Thomas Rubin. More than six hundred contributors raised $654,000. The mission was to secure financial independence of the paper. In 2015, "The Phillipian" discontinued on-campus paid subscriptions and publishes to students and faculty without  charge. A forum for controversy. The publication often allows students to air their views in a public forum. Editorials, op-ed pieces, and letters to the editor have sometimes stirred campus-wide debate. In 2003, a student and "Phillipian" columnist criticized the school for its lack of appropriate mental health services, after she had difficulty during her Andover years of adjusting to a romantic breakup. She asserted that the school's negative attitude towards students who needed counseling might discourage students from seeking help. In 2013, a letter to the editor expressed concern regarding gender equity; the writer complained that  in a school in which over half of the faculty were women, that since 1973, women were chosen to be school president only four times. The writer added that from 1973 to 2013, there were only nine female editors of "The Phillipian" as opposed to thirty-three male editors. In 2015, male athletes wrote a letter to the editor complaining how the male athlete sports-oriented culture was an indirect cause of sexism and led to an unbalanced "hook-up culture" at the school. Sometimes refusing to publish a point of view has caused controversy. For example, Marie Sapienza claimed  that her English teacher had fondled her when she had been a 15-year-old at the school; later, when she was in college, she tried to publish a letter in the paper about the alleged assault, but was rebuffed. Since "The Phillipian" publishes its archives, it has been a source of public information regarding disputes in the larger political sphere. For example, the paper was a source of news about whether Republican politician Jeb Bush had been a socialist during his student years at Andover. The publishing process. Generally each springtime, outgoing student editors choose the next batch of  editors for the following year. Editorial meetings take place in a basement room in Morse Hall. According to a report in "Town & Country" magazine, there is no censorship of "The Phillipian". While there may be no formal censorship, there have been some rules and restrictions; for example, a report in 2011 said that student editors were discouraged from contacting the school's trustees, and that trustees were asked by the administration not to speak to student reporters. In 2017, the paper has a policy of censoring out the names of student writers, possibly as a way of shielding their identities  on the Internet. At editorial meetings, there are two faculty advisers who critique last week's paper and offer suggestions for improvement. Academy instructor Thomas T. Lyons, who believed that "teachers shouldn't be dull", served as an adviser for several decades in the latter half of the twentieth century. In addition, "The Phillipian" serves as a reference for the school. It publishes an annual survey of students and student life. Social aspects. "The Phillipian" is in many respects a social club and a way for students to form lifelong friendships. Grace Tully, a contributor who graduated in 2014, described  her experience at the paper as being one of passionate sleepless nights of writing and serving as a "second home": "The Phillipian" sponsors an annual bus trip to New York City for student contributors to visit the "New York Times", "ABC News", and other media-related venues. Notable alumni. "Phillipian" writers have had careers in publications including "The New York Times", "USA Today", "The Washington Post", "The Chicago Tribune", "The Boston Globe", "The New Yorker" and "Time".