By Amy Young

The Daily Universe celebrates 50 years

This new tradition, a newspaper dubbed ?The B.Y.A. Student,? first appeared in the fall of 1891, published by the Student Life Department. Although an admirable attempt, the paper still had a long way to go.

?When the first newspaper appeared on campus it was a cross between an info sheet and literary journal,? said Ed Adams, chair of the Department of Communications. ?There were no graphics, just text.?

In 1898, the paper had its first of many name changes. The White and Blue replaced the Student and the paper was now pub-lished twice a month ? on the 1st and 15th.

The staff of 5 to 9 people, which represented various colleges and departments across campus, wrote all articles. Yearly sub-scriptions were available for 50 cents at first, but a few months later the price went up to 75 cents a year.

?Subscriptions were not only available to the community, but to servicemen and missionaries as well,? said Warren Bingham, who works in the advertising department of NewsNet.

The White and Blue?s layout began very simple with only three columns per page. The first two columns were dedicated to news articles, usually announcements of upcoming events, and the third column features advertisements.

In 1921 it was time for another change. A campus-wide campaign began to find a new name for the newspaper. Finally, the name Y News won out and it stuck for the next 25-plus years. With a new name came other improvements too. The staff size increased, adding more articles to the paper, the paper was printed weekly instead of twice monthly, the headline style changed, the sheets were larger and of higher quality and the writing style improved. These upgrades were not without a price. The Annual subscription went up to $2.

Just when it seemed the name would finally stick, the powers that be opted to change the campus-wide newspaper?s name again in 1948 when the Y News became The Brigham Young Universe. It ran for the next 6 years with that title. Following the same format as the Y News, the paper was published on a weekly basis for five of those years.

Finally in September 1955 the paper went daily, well, sort of.

The Sept. 22, 1955 issue read: ?Beginning with this issue, the Brigham Young Universe will be published Tuesday, Wednes-day, Thursday and Friday of each school week throughout the academic year.?

The announcement credited the conversion from a weekly publication into a daily publication to the acquisition of a new print-ing press that could produce 3,500 newspapers in one hour. The average circulation hit the 7,000 mark.

The paper would now feature local, state and national news bulletins on the first page ? thanks to the Associated Press. Be-fore, the paper only featured information about events on campus.

The new daily would have 4 pages Tuesdays through Thursdays and eight pages on Fridays. The announcement said that size could increase to meet special circumstances.

?The number of pages always increase during peak times of the year ? times when the amount of visitors to campus is in-creased or the public is more aware of the campus,? Adams said. ?Advertising also has an effect on the size.?

In 1956 the name changed for the last time to today?s The Daily Universe and was published Monday through Friday. But the paper, still published under the Student Life Department, still had one change to go.

In the 1960s, BYU President Ernest L. Wilkinson, fed up with the lack of professionalism in the newspaper, called in rein-forcements. Wilkinson called Ed Heraldson, then an editor at the U.S. News and World Report, and asked him to come to BYU to help out the newspaper and the journalism department.

Searching for inspiration, the pair traveled to the University of Missouri in Columbia to check out the school?s journalism pro-gram. There they found that the school treated the newspaper as a lab ? part of a class. Adams said the two returned to Provo ready to make changes.

In 1965 the Communications Department and the Journalism Department merged into one program and the responsibility of the newspaper moved from Student Life to the newly formed department. The newspaper became a lab and is still run that way today.

Today, The Daily Universe is published Monday through Friday with a circulation of 18, 500 during fall and winter semesters and 10, 000 during the spring and summer. The paper features articles on campus activities, sports, artistic performances and local, state and national news. The majority of articles are original content, written by the students.

However, with all of the changes and growth through the years one thing has remained the same.

?The newspaper is what connects us as a community,? Adams said. ?That has always been its purpose.?