by Liz Bartolomeo
Features Editor

Courtesy "A Century in Focus" Hatchet staff members and GW officials attend the opening of the paper's townhouse at 2140 G St. in August 1993, after the paper attained financial and editorial independence from the University.

Throughout The Hatchet's 100-year history, the newspaper has tracked the progress of an ever-changing University. The staff of student editors, writers and photographers covers the news of GW and its community, and since its founding in 1904, The Hatchet has been the voice of the student population. However, for the first 89 years of The Hatchet, its publisher was the very institution of which paper was often most critical ­ GW.

"Independence was a nice idea, but it was not on the agenda at the time," said Hatchet general manager Steven Morse, remembering the paper at the end of the 1980s. "I never knew two years from then the paper would be independent."

But on Aug. 30, 1993, The Hatchet celebrated one of its greatest milestones ­ independence. In an article that ran on the front page of that issue, editors expressed their enthusiasm.

"The University is no longer our publisher. We no longer answer to the Student Publications Committee (of the Faculty Senate)," said then-editor in chief Paul Connolly.

The road to independence was one full of lawyers, negotiations and financial and real estate concerns. Despite setbacks along the way, though, both GW officials and Hatchet staffers agreed that editorial and financial independence from the University was a realistic goal.

"I remember feeling it was strange to be run by the University because we were so critical of them," said Debbie Solomon, who was Hatchet editor in chief during the 1992­93 school year. "We wanted a newspaper that was run by the students."

University President Stephen Joel Trachtenberg remembers learning in 1988 that GW oversaw the main campus newspaper.

"I was astonished to discover that I was publisher of The Hatchet," Trachtenberg said in an interview last week. "I kept trying to push for independence."

At that time the University not only financed the paper but, because of its publisher status, received a bulk of the complaints about controversial issues. In his attempts to encourage Hatchet independence, Trachtenberg used his own educational background as a template.

"It was a model of my own from my time at Columbia, Yale and Harvard. Those newspapers were all independent," Trachtenberg said.

While serving as the dean of Boston University, Trachtenberg also worked with the first editors of the Daily Free Press.

Despite Trachtenbergıs experience with independent student media, members of The Hatchet staff were concerned about the paper's future during negotiations in 1993. At the time, The Hatchet was $40,000 in debt and had been subjected to a University-appointed review committee. And in 1990, the paper had to publish an extra issue in the fall to print a retraction about a rape hoax.

As editor in chief, Solomon was one of the few students who was involved in talks between The Hatchet and the University. But she said there was no editorial board at the time, so there was no single person to oversee the process on the paperıs behalf.

The lack of an editorial board was one of the many items discussed between GW and The Hatchet, but financial security was always at the forefront.

"The problem early on was money," Morse said. "There was a back story (to the independence talks), but money was the issue.

Student staffers realized how pressing this matter was.

³Our concern was how to structure an independence so that the paper wouldn't die," Solomon said. "The biggest question was how were we going to get paid. It was a concern for the student editors."

The negotiation process went through a number of rounds, with The Hatchet and GW exchanging proposals. The University initially recommended that the editor in chief's stipend ­ paid by GW ­ would be phased out in two to three years. At The Hatchetıs persuasion, the deal was extended to seven years. The two parties also exchanged copyright licenses and ownership of the paper's archives.

Before independence, The Hatchet called the Marvin Centerıs fourth floor home. There, the newspaper had about 2,000 square feet of office space plus a darkroom. But during negotiations it was decided that the paper needed a new home to go with its new freedom. The Hatchetıs current location at 2140 G St. has been the paperıs home for 10 years.

The front page of The Hatchet today includes a flag that reads, "Serving the George Washington University Community since 1904." Even this sentence was part of the negotiations. The flag was required by GW officials, who insisted on using the word community.

"We added 1904 for prestige," Morse said.

Looking back on the negotiations, now more than a decade in the past, Trachtenberg said The Hatchet's independence affected both the staff and the University.

"Financially, independence teaches people to value it more,² Trachtenberg said. "It gives a greater sense of responsibility to the editors. Thatıs part of being a newspaper."