The California Aggie

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aggielogo.pngThe California Aggie masthead is © 1995 - 2009 by The California Aggie.

  1. The Staff
      1. The Editorial Board
  2. Finances
  3. Special Issues
  4. Distribution Points
    1. On Campus
    2. Off Campus
  5. History
    1. Previous Editors in Chief
    2. Awards Won
    3. Major (and hilarious) Typos
  6. Office Art
  7. See Also

Location
25 Lower Freeborn Hall
Hours
Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. during academic year
Monday through Friday, 12 p.m. to 2 p.m during summer
General Contact
(530) 752-9877
Advertising
(530) 752-6851
Circulation
8,000 to 10,000 (see California Aggie Printing)
Website
[WWW]http://theaggie.org/
See also: [WWW]twitter feed and [WWW]facebook page

Serving the UC Davis campus and community since 1915, The California Aggie is the official campus newspaper. Its coverage includes UC Davis campus news, Aggie sports, science and technology, city of Davis and local news, and the local arts scene. Twice a week there is an opinion page that includes editorials authored by the Aggie editors, guest opinions, political cartoons and letters to the editor. The Aggie also publishes columns, a daily calendar of events, classified advertising, and of course, the crossword and sudoku puzzles, which may be the paper's most popular feature (especially in boring lectures).

It can be found in every corner of campus, in front of most major lecture halls, and even in a lot of community locations outside of campus. The Aggie is a self-sustaining unit of ASUCD, meaning that it generates its own income (entirely through advertising sales) and does not rely on a yearly operating subsidy. The paper is distributed for free. Up just to recent, The Aggie was the last student newspaper in the UC system to publish daily. They have since reduced their circulation numbers, and are no longer printing on Fridays, although they do publish articles online.

You can read the current issue (and limited archives) of The Aggie at [WWW]theaggie.org. The Aggie also has a [WWW]twitter feed for breaking news updates, links to Aggie articles, and links to other items of interest to Aggie readers.

The Staff

Over 125 students work in various capacities for The Aggie, including managers, desk editors, photographers, writers, copy readers, layout artists, graphic artists, sales clerks and advertising representatives. The Editor in Chief holds the highest position at the Aggie, overseeing the operations of the entire organization. The Campus Media Board appoints a new Editor in Chief once a year.

The Editorial Board

aggie1.jpgThe News room

Twice a week during the academic year, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, the Aggie publishes editorials that represent the collective opinion1 of the editors on a range of topics. The California Aggie editorial board is made up of the Editor in Chief, the Managing Editor, and the news editors.

Current Members

Note: see The California Aggie Staff History for archived staff lists.

See also The California Aggie Cartoons. Also check out a list of past and present cartoons and cartoonists.

Finances

aggie2.jpgThe Production room

The Aggie's operating budget for 2009-2010 is approximately $208,000. This budget covers stipends for editors and managers, printing costs, and the costs of running an office five days a week. All of the Aggie's income comes from advertising sales. The Aggie has for the past few years been running a deficit due to a national trend away from print media advertising. The Aggie working with the Media Board and ASUCD Controller has taken good steps to further reduce the Aggie's operating budget in an effort to reduce their annual deficits.

The California Aggie is a unit of ASUCD, but is not 'governed' by them in the way that other units are. ASUCD delegated control of the Aggie to the Campus Media Board through an amendment to the ASUCD constitution. The Aggie does not receive any direct financial contributions from ASUCD, but does get its space in Lower Freeborn Hall for free. The Aggie also pays ASUCD for their accounting. In the—likely—event that the Aggie's reserves run out, ASUCD would be responsible for paying for any deficits that occur out of its own capital reserves.

Special Issues

The Aggie runs three special issues every year.

Distribution Points

On Campus

Off Campus

History

agricola.jpgThis special edition of The Aggie from 1980 mimics the feel of the original Weekly Agricola. Copyright The California Aggie.

The California Aggie was originally called The Weekly Agricola, back when UC Davis was still known as the University Farm School. The Weekly Agricola (If you're a Latin geek, "The Weekly Farmer") was first published on September 29th 1915.

The paper moved to using standard broadsheet in 1974; before that they used a tabloid format. The Aggie used to publish a Spoof edition at the end of the year (or April Fool's day). The spoof edition was not published in 2004, due to unusually poor taste in the 2003 edition. However, the spoof edition was revived in 2005, and was received with much acclaim by readers.

[WWW]Incomplete list of former Editors in Chief.

The paper went from occasional color to daily color under the direction of then editor in chief Andrew Whelan in the spring of 2004. It went back to occasional color in Fall 2007 in an effort to stop the growing deficit in their budget.

Like any large long-lived organization, the Aggie has had its share of controversies.

At the close of the 2006-2007 school year, The Aggie faced another consecutive year of deficit, this time approaching $120,000. The two Aggie staff members responsible for overseeing The Aggie's finances at the time were business manager Mia Szmuch and advertising manager Christina Chin, who was responsible for the newspaper's lack of advertising sales. Nevertheless, incoming editor in chief Eddie Lee and managing editor Caitlin Kelly-Sneed selected Christina Chin to again serve as advertising manager for the 2007-2008 school year.

As of January 2009, they will no longer print Friday editions of the Aggie in order to save costs.

Previous Editors in Chief

The reason the website doesn't have a very extensive archive is that the website was moved to [WWW]The College Publisher Network in 2005. That edition, operated by y2m networks, essentially used the Aggie's content to generate revenue for their youth marketing division. It promoted web advertisements over the articles, leading you to have to scroll down before you could read any real content. That version of the site made its debut on Friday, December 2, 2005; however, it did not feature any archives and broke all links to the old story urls. When they changed to the current version of the site back with Creative Media, College Publisher refused to give the Aggie a copy of the electronic archive, because they're a bunch of dicks. The new site, which came online in 2008, has much less advertising and links to AGTV stories included. It also broke a bunch of wiki links again.

The Aggie had a long standing feud with ASUCD. The two formerly hashed out their differences at the end of the year with a sloshball game, but a few years ago, ties to ASUCD have become so strained that the Aggie played KDVS instead. In 2007, The Aggie staff played itself.

In Summer 2005, [wikipedia]Sudoku was added by then Editor in Chief Daniel Stone and Design Director JonasMari so that people have another distraction after they get frustrated with the crossword.

Awards Won

awards.jpgWall of awards in the Editors' room.

[WWW]Associated College Press

[WWW]California College Media Association Awards

Major (and hilarious) Typos

On November 27, 2007 the leading headline of the Aggie was "Generation Sex Week kicks off, promotes AIDS".

Office Art

Also see Orgasmatron for more Aggie art.

bird.jpgCreated on an office wall by former Aggie staffer Jackson Pritt

See Also
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