About The Daily
Since the first issue of The Daily rolled off the presses in 1911, it has evolved from a daily sports rag to a twice-weekly comprehensive newspaper that not only looks beautiful (if we do say so ourselves), but also informs, subverts, and entertains.
In our pages, you’ll find more than just campus news. We’re home to critical thought, culture, ideas, and ferocious debate. We’re a non-hierarchical collective organization with dozens of contributors and 19 staff-elected editors. Every Wednesday and Friday is a production night in Shatner B-24 (our office), during which our reporters and editors write, edit, design, illustrate, and touch up photos for the issue to be put out the following weekday. Accordingly, you’ll find us on stands every Monday and Thursday morning.
In order to operate, The Daily is funded by a student levy. As soon as you pay your student fees, you become a member of the Daily Publications Society (DPS), the autonomous, not-for-profit organization that publishes The McGill Daily and our French language counterpart Le Délit. This means, most importantly, that we are here for you – The Daily exists to represent the McGill community.
Every year, McGill students elect six members to the DPS’s nine-member Board of Directors, which takes care of financial and legal matters at the papers. The students-at-large are joined on the board by three editorial representatives. All DPS members (mostly students) are entitled to attend board meetings, address the board, and collect signatures to initiate a DPS referendum.
Interested in being Daily staff?
If you’re a writer, illustrator, graphic designer, photographer, or stickler for grammar, please come visit our office or shoot us an email! There’s no experience necessary to contribute to The Daily. And if you really enjoy contributing, you can accumulate six points (an article is one point, an illustration is one point, a photo is one point, a feature is two points, editing and sitting in on a production night is two points, et cetera) and become staff
Interested in being an editor?
Once you’re on staff, you can run in (or vote in) editorial elections! The editorial board is made up of a Coordinating editor, a Coordinating News editor, three news editor, two Commentary & Compendium editors , one Features editor, two Culture editors, a Health&Education editor, a Science + Technology editor, a Photo editor, an Illustrations editor, two Production & Design editors, a Copy editor, and a Web editor.
Editors are expected to be present on production nights and for editorial meetings. As a group, we discuss and revise all of our editorials extensively before they are put into print. Our editorial board also meets every Monday night to discuss administrative issues related to the paper, choose covers, select our editorial topics for the week, and stay up to date with news about the DPS. If you would like to take part in our weekly meetings, the staff and editors of The Daily meet every Monday at 6 p.m. in the QPIRG building.
If you have more questions about becoming an editor, you can stop by, shoot us an email, or give us a call! Any editor will take the time to chat with you and provide you with a copy of our elections policy.
Our next election will take place the week of February 1. If you’re interested in running, contact an editor as soon as possible. Open positions include Commentary editor, Sci+Tech editor, Copy editor, and Web editor.
The S.O.P.
The Daily operates according to our Statement of Principles (SOP). The SOP is a mandate which guides all of our paper’s content and the ways in which our non-hierarchal editorial board operates.
2.1 The fundamental goal of The McGill Daily shall be to serve as a critical and constructive forum for the exchange of ideas and information about McGill University and related communities.
2.2 Within this optic, the staff of The Daily recognizes that all events and issues are inherently political, involving relations of social and economic power. Further, we recognize that at present power is unevenly distributed, especially (but not solely) on the basis of gender, age, social class, race, sexuality, religion, disability, and cultural identity. We also recognize that keeping silent about this situation helps to perpetuate inequality. To help correct these inequities, to the best of its staff’s abilities, The Daily should depict and analyze power relations accurately in its coverage.
2.3 As an autonomous student newspaper, relatively free from commercial and other controls, The Daily can best serve its purposes by examining issues and events most media ignore. In particular, it should deal with the role post secondary education plays in constructing and maintaining the current order. It should also assist students and other groups working for change in a critical framework, with the aim of empowering and giving a voice to individuals and communities marginalized on the basis of the criteria mentioned in section 2.2. The Daily’s methods should be both educative and active, and determined democratically by its staff.
2.4 Finally, we recognize that The Daily must remain accessible to the student community it comes from, and should abide by an ethic of fairness while maintaining its autonomy.