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The Flat Hat

From Wikipedia, in a visual modern way
The Flat Hat
The Flat Hat January 23 Front Page.png
TypeBiweekly newspaper
FormatBroadsheet
Editor-in-chiefMolly Parks
Managing editorsJake Forbes
FoundedOctober 2, 1911; 111 years ago (October 2, 1911)
LanguageEnglish
HeadquartersWilliamsburg, Virginia
Circulation1,600
Websiteflathatnews.com

The Flat Hat is the official student newspaper at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. It prints Tuesdays during the College's academic year. It began printing twice-weekly in 2007; since its inception in 1911, The Flat Hat had printed weekly. It returned to weekly printing in 2015.[1] In fall 2020, The Flat Hat began printing biweekly due to restrictions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. The Flat Hat staff operates out of its office in William and Mary's Sadler Center.[2]

The newspaper is printed as a broadsheet. During the early 1990s, The Flat Hat was printed with a colored front page and a separate colored variety section. Today, The Flat Hat's front page and back page are generally printed in color while the inside pages are printed in black and white.

The newspaper currently supports five sections: news, sports, opinions, variety and digital media. The news section covers local and national news, focusing on events at the College. The sports section covers all William and Mary varsity athletics and profiles teams and individual players. The opinions section publishes regular op-eds and staff editorials, and prints student letters to the editor. The variety section features regular columns, including "Behind Closed Doors" (the sex column) and "Confusion Corner" (an opinion column), "Penne For Your Thoughts" (a cooking column) and "Sharps and Flats" (a music review column) along with human interest stories. The digital media section produces multimedia content in the form of videos, podcasts, graphics and photos as well as maintains the newspaper's social media presence.

In October 2007, The Flat Hat won a Pacemaker award for excellence in the category of non-daily newspaper at a four-year university.[3] The Pacemaker is an honor in collegiate journalism, and is awarded by the Associated Collegiate Press and the Newspaper Association of America Foundation.

In 2017, The Flat Hat was recognized with a "mark of excellence" award from the Society of Professional Journalists for in-depth reporting.

Discover more about The Flat Hat related topics

Williamsburg, Virginia

Williamsburg, Virginia

Williamsburg is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia, United States. As of the 2020 census, it had a population of 15,425. Located on the Virginia Peninsula, Williamsburg is in the northern part of the Hampton Roads metropolitan area. It is bordered by James City County on the west and south and York County on the east.

Virginia

Virginia

Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. Its geography and climate are shaped by the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Chesapeake Bay. The state's capital is Richmond. Its most-populous city is Virginia Beach, and Fairfax County is the state's most-populous political subdivision. Virginia's population in 2022 was over 8.68 million, with 35% living within in the Greater Washington metropolitan area.

Broadsheet

Broadsheet

A broadsheet is the largest newspaper format and is characterized by long vertical pages, typically of 22.5 inches (57 cm). Other common newspaper formats include the smaller Berliner and tabloid–compact formats.

National Pacemaker Awards

National Pacemaker Awards

The National Pacemaker Awards are awards for excellence in American student journalism, given annually since 1927. The awards are generally considered to be the highest national honors in their field, and are unofficially known as the "Pulitzer Prizes of student journalism".

Associated Collegiate Press

Associated Collegiate Press

The Associated Collegiate Press (ACP) is the largest and oldest national membership organization for college student media in the United States. The ACP is a division of the National Scholastic Press Association. It awards the newspaper, magazine, and online National Pacemaker Awards, which are considered the highest honors a student publication can receive.

History

The Flat Hat derives its name from the public nickname of the F.H.C. Society, "the Flat Hat Club"; the Society was the first collegiate secret society in the territory of the present United States of America, founded at the College in 1750. The first issue of The Flat Hat was printed on October 3, 1911.[1]

Origins of the name, "Flat Hat"

The name can be traced back to the F.H.C. Society, a secret fraternity established at the College on November 11, 1750, and nicknamed the Flat Hat Club, whose most notable members included St. George Tucker, Thomas Jefferson, and George Wythe. As a collegiate fraternity, the Flat Hat Club was a predecessor of Phi Beta Kappa, which was founded at the College in 1776 and today is regarded as the leading academic honor society for undergraduates in the arts and sciences. According to the issue of The Flat Hat for September 28, 1928, twentieth-century members of the Flat Hat Club were directly responsible for the creation of the newspaper.[4]

The badge of the F.H.C. was circular with a Rococo rendering of the coat of arms of the Society on the reverse and "FHC" in a large monogram on the obverse; beneath were a date and motto, Nov. XI. MDCCL Stabilitas et Fides. "The motto of the Flat Hat Club, Stabilitas et Fides, has always been the motto of The Flat Hat."[1]

Website

The Flat Hat launched their website in the fall of 2006 and is hosted by WordPress. The website is updated daily with printed articles, online blogs, videos, podcasts, photojournalism stories, and the embedded pdf of its most recent Issuu. The site attracts 4,000 unique visitors weekly. About 300 of these viewers come from Facebook posts, 200 from the mobile app "News Break," and 160 from Twitter. The Flat Hat's Facebook page and Instagram each reach 1,500 unique users weekly. The website serves content securely through Secure Sockets Layer.

Flat Hat Magazine

In November 2019, the Flat Hat Magazine published its inaugural issue. The news magazine was created to promote long-form writing and creative design that is unrealistic for a weekly newspaper[5] and publishes semesterly with the exception of Spring 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic sent students home in early March.

Censorship

In 1945, Marilyn Kaemmerle, then editor of The Flat Hat, wrote an editorial titled "Lincoln's Job Half-Done" to commemorate the birthday of Abraham Lincoln. She encouraged the racial integration of William & Mary, citing that "the Negroes should be recognized as equals in our minds and hearts."[6] The William & Mary Board of Visitors, the group appointed by the Commonwealth of Virginia to run the College, instructed then-president of the College John Pomfret to expel Kaemmerle. Pomfret compromised by removing Kaemmerle from The Flat Hat and asking her to sign a statement saying that the compromise was in the best interest of all concerned.[7] Since 1945, The Flat Hat has had relative editorial control and autonomy.

In 1962, the newspaper ran an editorial criticizing College President Davis Young Paschall's decision to ban a communist speaker from campus. Paschall responded by calling then editor H. Mason Sizemore and other staff members into the Blue Room of the Wren Building and attempt to browbeat them into apologizing for the editorial.[8]

The paper has no faculty adviser. The Flat Hat is a member of the College's Publications Council, a body made up of the editors of most publications on campus, as well as a member of the college administration. The Publications Council has direct financial control over the Flat Hat.[9]

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Flat Hat Club

Flat Hat Club

The Flat Hat Club is the popular name of a collegiate secret society and honor fraternity founded in 1750 at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. The fraternity, formally named the "F.H.C. Society", was founded at the College on November 11, 1750. The society maintains relationships with societies at the University of St. Andrews and Amherst College.

Secret society

Secret society

A secret society is an organization whose activities, events, inner functioning, or membership are concealed. The society may or may not attempt to conceal its existence. The term usually excludes covert groups, such as intelligence agencies or guerrilla warfare insurgencies, that hide their activities and memberships but maintain a public presence.

St. George Tucker

St. George Tucker

St. George Tucker was a Bermudian-born American lawyer, military officer and professor who taught law at the College of William & Mary. He strengthened the requirements for a law degree at the college, as he believed lawyers needed deep educations. He served as a judge of the General Court of Virginia and later on the Court of Appeals.

George Wythe

George Wythe

George Wythe was an American academic, scholar and judge who was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. The first of the seven signatories of the United States Declaration of Independence from Virginia, Wythe served as one of Virginia's representatives to the Continental Congress and the Philadelphia Convention and served on a committee that established the convention's rules and procedures. He left the convention before signing the United States Constitution to tend to his dying wife. He was elected to the Virginia Ratifying Convention and helped ensure that his home state ratified the Constitution. Wythe taught and was a mentor to Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, Henry Clay and other men who became American leaders.

Phi Beta Kappa

Phi Beta Kappa

The Phi Beta Kappa Society (ΦΒΚ) is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal arts and sciences, and to induct the most outstanding students of arts and sciences at only select American colleges and universities. It was founded at the College of William and Mary on December 5, 1776, as the first collegiate Greek-letter fraternity and was among the earliest collegiate fraternal societies. Since its inception, 17 U.S. presidents, 40 U.S. Supreme Court justices, and 136 Nobel laureates have been inducted members.

Rococo

Rococo

Rococo, less commonly Roccoco, also known as Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and theatrical style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpted moulding, and trompe-l'œil frescoes to create surprise and the illusion of motion and drama. It is often described as the final expression of the Baroque movement.

Photojournalism

Photojournalism

Photojournalism is journalism that uses images to tell a news story. It usually only refers to still images, but can also refer to video used in broadcast journalism. Photojournalism is distinguished from other close branches of photography by having a rigid ethical framework which demands an honest but impartial approach that tells a story in strictly journalistic terms. Photojournalists contribute to the news media, and help communities connect with one other. They must be well-informed and knowledgeable, and are able to deliver news in a creative manner that is both informative and entertaining.

Issuu

Issuu

Issuu, Inc. is a Danish-founded American electronic publishing platform based in Palo Alto, California, United States.

Facebook

Facebook

Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes, its name comes from the face book directories often given to American university students. Membership was initially limited to Harvard students, gradually expanding to other North American universities and, since 2006, anyone over 13 years old. As of July 2022, Facebook claimed 2.93 billion monthly active users, and ranked third worldwide among the most visited websites. It was the most downloaded mobile app of the 2010s.

Instagram

Instagram

Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can be shared publicly or with preapproved followers. Users can browse other users' content by tag and location, view trending content, like photos, and follow other users to add their content to a personal feed.

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the Union through the American Civil War to defend the nation as a constitutional union and succeeded in abolishing slavery, bolstering the federal government, and modernizing the U.S. economy.

Davis Young Paschall

Davis Young Paschall

Davis Young Paschall was the twenty second president of the College of William & Mary, serving from 1960 to 1971. Prior to that, he served as Superintendent of Public Instruction for the Commonwealth of Virginia from 1957 to 1960, during the state-decreed period of Massive Resistance. During his superintendency public schools in the state were closed by gubernatorial and legislative fiat and subsequently, Dr. Paschall took steps to reopen those schools during the federal requirements. His papers from his time as president of the College of William & Mary can be found in the Special Collections Research Center at the College of William & Mary.

Staff

The exact number of staff who work on The Flat Hat varies each year but generally ranges between forty-five and fifty permanent staff members (students who are listed in the staff box of each issue of the newspaper). Students with or without experience in journalism are often encouraged to join. In 2010, the newspaper began an intern program focusing on providing journalistic experiences for underclassmen at William and Mary.

Like most other collegiate student newspapers, the staff includes not only reporters and columnists but an accounting department, a copyediting section, an Ombudsman[10] and an executive and editorial staff.

In spring 2021, The Flat Hat published its first annual diversity report[11] which aggregates information submitted by staff members in a voluntary form. This report includes information of staff demographic percentages including but not limited to racial background, gender identity and sexual orientation.

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Accounting

Accounting

Accounting, also known as accountancy, is the measurement, processing, and communication of financial and non-financial information about economic entities such as businesses and corporations. Accounting, which has been called the "language of business", measures the results of an organization's economic activities and conveys this information to a variety of stakeholders, including investors, creditors, management, and regulators. Practitioners of accounting are known as accountants. The terms "accounting" and "financial reporting" are often used as synonyms.

Ombudsman

Ombudsman

An ombudsman, ombud, ombuds, ombudswoman, ombudsperson or public advocate is an official who is usually appointed by the government or by parliament to investigate complaints and attempt to resolve them, usually through recommendations or mediation.

Gender identity

Gender identity

Gender identity is the personal sense of one's own gender. Gender identity can correlate with a person's assigned sex or can differ from it. In most individuals, the various biological determinants of sex are congruent, and consistent with the individual's gender identity. Gender expression typically reflects a person's gender identity, but this is not always the case. While a person may express behaviors, attitudes, and appearances consistent with a particular gender role, such expression may not necessarily reflect their gender identity. The term gender identity was coined by psychiatry professor Robert J. Stoller in 1964 and popularized by psychologist John Money.

Sexual orientation

Sexual orientation

Sexual orientation is an enduring pattern of romantic or sexual attraction to persons of the opposite sex or gender, the same sex or gender, or to both sexes or more than one gender. These attractions are generally subsumed under heterosexuality, homosexuality, and bisexuality, while asexuality is sometimes identified as the fourth category.

Major stories

The Flat Hat was the first news medium, student or professional, to break the news about the Wren Cross controversy,[12] doing so in a news brief. After the decision received more journalistic attention, The Flat Hat continued to follow the controversy, including revocation of a twelve-million-dollar donation,[13] placement of the cross in a display case,[14][15] and, ultimately, Gene Nichol's resignation of the presidency of the College[16] (which was impelled in part by the controversy surrounding the cross in the Wren chapel controversy[17]).

In May, 2010, The Flat Hat was the first journalistic source in Williamsburg, professional or other, to announce the election of Scott Foster to the city council governing Williamsburg.[18] Foster was the first William and Mary student ever to be elected to the council, and he had been endorsed by the editorial board of The Flat Hat.

In 2010, The Flat Hat was the first news source to report that ESPN continued to use a William and Mary athletic emblem that had been banned by the NCAA in 2006. ESPN ultimately discontinued the use of the emblem.

Special issues

The Fat Head

On April 1 of every year, in honor of April Fool's Day, the newspaper prints The Fat Head to accompany the usual semi-weekly issue. The Fat Head is a humor issue, usually with falsified articles and satirical commentary.

Best of the Burg

Every year around mid-December, The Flat Hat prints a special edition of the newspaper titled "Best of the Burg." The "Best of the Burg" issue outlines the staff's favorite picks for several restaurants in the Williamsburg area. In recent history, consistent winners have been The Cheese Shop, Aromas and The Trellis Restaurant all located in the Merchants Square area of Colonial Williamsburg.

Notable alumni

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James Comey

James Comey

James Brien Comey Jr. is an American lawyer who was the seventh director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from 2013 until his dismissal in May 2017. Comey was a registered Republican for most of his adult life; however, in 2016, he described himself as unaffiliated.

Ben Domenech

Ben Domenech

Ben Domenech is an American writer, blogger, editor, publisher and television commentator. He is the co-founder and publisher of The Federalist and host of The Federalist Radio Hour, and writes The Transom, a daily subscription newsletter for political insiders. He also co-founded the RedState group blog. In present day, he is a frequent co-host and commentator on Fox News.

Mike D'Orso

Mike D'Orso

Mike D'Orso is an American author and journalist based in Norfolk, Virginia.

Jill Ellis

Jill Ellis

Jillian Anne Ellis is an English-American soccer coach and executive who is currently the president of San Diego Wave FC. Ellis coached the United States women's national soccer team from 2014 to October 2019 and won two FIFA Women's World Cups in 2015 and 2019, making her the second coach to win consecutive World Cups. She stepped away from being USWNT’s head coach in October 2019 and currently serves as an ambassador for the United States Soccer Federation, with her focus being on working with the federation to help raise the number of women in coaching. She has also served as head coach for various college and United States national youth teams over her career.

David Lasky

David Lasky

David Lasky is an alternative cartoonist based in Seattle, Washington.

Patton Oswalt

Patton Oswalt

Patton Peter Oswalt is an American stand-up comedian and actor. His acting roles include Spence Olchin in the sitcom The King of Queens (1998–2007) and narrating the sitcom The Goldbergs (2013–present) as adult Adam F. Goldberg. After making his acting debut in the Seinfeld episode "The Couch", he has appeared in a variety of television series, such as Parks and Recreation, Community, Two and a Half Men, Drunk History, Reno 911!, Mystery Science Theater 3000, Archer, Veep, Justified, Kim Possible, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, portraying Principal Ralph Durbin in A.P. Bio (2018–2021) and Matthew the Raven in the TV series The Sandman (2022–present).

Amanda Petrusich

Amanda Petrusich

Amanda Petrusich is an American music journalist. She is a staff writer at The New Yorker and the author of three books: Pink Moon (2007), It Still Moves: Lost Songs, Lost Highways, and the Search for the Next American Music (2008), and Do Not Sell at Any Price: The Wild, Obsessive Hunt for the World's Rarest 78rpm Records (2014).

Source: "The Flat Hat", Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, (2023, March 16th), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flat_Hat.

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Further Reading

The Daily of the University of Washington

Technique (newspaper)

The Maneater

The Hoya

The Daily Princetonian

The Red & Black (University of Georgia)

The Daily Tar Heel

Collegiate Times

The Daily Barometer

Student Life (newspaper)

The Temple News
See also
References
  1. ^ a b c The Flat Hat online: About Us Archived 2008-05-14 at the Wayback Machine. Accessed 22 May 2008.
  2. ^ "Contact Details | Flat Hat News". flathatnews.com. Retrieved 15 March 2021.
  3. ^ National Scholastic Press Association: 2007 Pacemaker Award Winners Archived 2012-09-30 at the Wayback Machine. Accessed 22 May 2008.
  4. ^ The Flat Hat archives: 28 September 1928 issue Accessed 22 May 2008
  5. ^ "Fall 2019". 25 November 2019. Retrieved 16 March 2021.
  6. ^ The Flat Hat, 7 February 1945; Marilyn Kaemmerle. Accessed 22 May 2008.
  7. ^ The Flat Hat online: 12 February 2008. Archived 11 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine Accessed 22 May 2008.
  8. ^ "Swem Archives" Accessed: 13 October 2015.
  9. ^ The Flat Hat, 18 November 2008; Alex Guillen. Accessed December 5, 2010.
  10. ^ The Flat Hat, 1 March 2021. Accessed March 7, 2021.
  11. ^ "Diversity report". 6 March 2021. Retrieved 16 March 2021.
  12. ^ The Flat Hat online: 6 October 2006. Accessed 22 May 2008.
  13. ^ The Flat Hat online: 28 February 2007. Archived 29 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine Accessed 22 May 2008.
  14. ^ The Flat Hat online: 6 March 2007. Archived 11 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine Accessed 22 May 2008.
  15. ^ The Flat Hat online: 17 April 2007. Accessed 22 May 2008.
  16. ^ The Flat Hat online: 15 May 2008. Archived 18 February 2008 at the Wayback Machine Accessed 22 May 2008.
  17. ^ The Flat Hat online: 13 February 2008. Archived 11 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine Accessed 22 May 2008.
  18. ^ The Flat Hat online: 4 May 2010. Accessed 1 February 2011.
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