About Us

The Charlatan has been publishing at Carleton for more than 70 years. The first issue was published on Nov. 28, 1945, under the name the Carleton. In the 1970s the name was changed to represent a more edgy newspaper the editors sought to shape.

In 1988 The Charlatan became independent from the Carleton University Students’ Association, and is now funded primarily through a student levy granted each year, but also through advertising.

As a not-for-profit corporation The Charlatan’s finances are overseen by an independent Board of Directors. The board is controlled by five students-at-large, two representatives of the newspaper’s staff, one professional journalist and one professional businessperson.

The board hires an advertising manager to sell advertisements for the paper, a production assistant to oversee the layout of the newspaper, a web/social media manager to upload the content each week, and a distribution team to get the newspaper on the stands.

Each year the board will adopt a budget and have an audit conducted to review its finances. Both documents will be made available on the website.

Each year the newspaper will elect an editorial staff in March to take office the following publication year. The editorial staff consists of 11 people: an editor-in-chief, two news editors, a national editor, a features editor, an opinions/editorial editor, an arts editor, a sports editor, a photo editor, a multimedia editor, and a graphics editor.

Any student at Carleton University that has contributed at least four times to the section for which they are running for during the current production year may run for a position. In order to be eligible to vote, a student must have made at least four contributions to the paper overall (which includes writing a story, taking a picture, etc.).

The editorial staff meets each week to discuss what editorial stances the newspaper will take and other important decisions. The newspaper also holds an open meeting every Thursday at 5:15 p.m. in the office to go over the issue published that week. All students are welcome and encouraged to attend.

The newspaper will only publish works by Carleton students and is a primarily volunteer-run organization. Although the editorial staff is paid, all of the newspaper’s writers, photographers, graphic artists and so forth work on a volunteer basis.

The newspaper publishes every Thursday throughout the school year, breaking only for exam sessions and reading week. During the summer the newspaper is published on the last Thursday of each month.

The newspaper’s office is located in the Unicentre on the fifth floor in room 531. In the office one has easy access to hard copies of the newspaper’s constitution, bylaws, budget and latest audit. As well, all students are encouraged to drop by and check out our extensive archives, which chronicle most of the issues published by the newspaper.

Our editorial guidelines can be found here.