The Booze News[1] is a satirical newspaper founded at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in February 2004 by Atish Doshi and Derek Chin. The free paper, published weekly with a circulation of 20,000, is written, edited and distributed by students at UIUC. Currently, The Booze News is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois and exists under the Rickshaw Media Group[2] flag with its sister paper, The Rough Draft [3].
Origins and Expansion
editAccording to co-founder Derek Chin, The Booze News was founded as a twelve-page paper in 2004 as a "complete joke"[4], though the paper's popularity quickly grew among the University of Illinois student base, and the paper expanded to twenty pages.The first campus expansion took place in 2005, as The Booze News began publishing a twelve-page issue at Illinois State University[5]. In 2006, The Booze News expanded further, and began distribution at three more schools, The University of Iowa in Iowa City, Indiana Universityin Bloomington, Indiana and the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri, though the Indiana University and University of Missouri issues are no longer in print. In 2008 the parent company of The Booze News, Rickshaw Media Group, launched a second paper, The Rough Draft, with similar content and appearance at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida and The University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia. In 2008 the weekly issues at The University of Iowa and Illinois State University adopted the Rough Draft moniker.
Weekly Content
editEach week the student-writers at The Booze News produce several comedic articles that poke fun at life as a college students. Often the content consists of many one-shot satirical articles that comment on current campus occurrences, as well as one or two recurring columns that anchor weekly readership. For example, Volume 13, issue 3[6], published on September 10, 2008 led with a one-shot article[7] parodying a hoax email[8] sent out by UIUC Chancellor Richard Herman, and contained two regular columns, a fake interview with UIUC football coach Ron Zook[9] and a sex-themed column, "Sex in the C-U"[10].
In addition to the weekly articles, The Booze News runs a rotating series of alcohol reviews[11], CD reviews[12], bartender interviews, drinking games, classtime games and celebrity interviews[13].
Controversy
editThe Booze News often garners criticism for promoting underage drinking and binge drinking[14], but co-founder Atish Doshi notes that "The paper is not for 8-year olds,"[15]and "The students love it"[16].
In October, 2008 The Booze News came under popular scrutiny for an article that was run in the University of Missouri issue. The article in question was about "Judging A Book By Its Cover"[17]. In the article the writer, who was subsequently dismissed, offered derogatory comments about a book dealing with interracial gay marriage. The incident garnered national attention from news such as CNN[18], Fox News[19]and the Los Angeles Times[20].