The Phillipian

The Phillipian is the student-run weekly newspaper of the American preparatory school of Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. It covers school news including controversies, campus events, sports, faculty appointments, graduations, and academic programs, and it serves as a training ground for students to learn about journalism.^[1] Many of its student contributors have gone on to careers in journalism and the media. The publication aims to foster a literary and journalistic spirit among its student contributors.^[1] It is regarded as the oldest preparatory or high school paper in the United States, and the second-oldest continuously published paper,^[1] and it is in its 140th year of continuous publication.^[2] It publishes a digital version as well as archives of past papers, and publishes on various social media platforms. The paper edition is printed weekly during the school year, and there is a summer edition as well. The publication gets revenue from an endowment fund as well as advertising revenues from local businesses, and students run the paper as a business.^[3] While the paper has faculty advisers, all editorial decisions are made by student editors, and it is editorially independent from the academy's administration.^[3] In 2017 the printed version is 12–16 pages long and has five regular sections: news, commentary, sports, arts and features, and is distributed every Friday.

History

Beginnings

This image is believed to be the first publication of a high school student newspaper in the United States, dated July 28, 1857.

The first edition was published on July 28, 1857. According to one source, this initial publication establishes the paper as the oldest preparatory newspaper in the United States.^[1] The initial motto was Justitia fiat ruat caelum, a Latin phrase meaning "Let justice be done though the heavens fall"; later the motto became "Veritas super omnia" or "Truth above all."

In the decades after 1857, there is no evidence of publication until October 19, 1878, when The Phillipian began regular publication,^[4] making it the second oldest continuously published preparatory school paper.^[5][6] The first masthead listed editor-in-chief Edward S. Beach and nine associates.^[7]

In the 1880s, the paper covered issues such as disputes between students and the town of Andover, usually siding with the students, and covered the ongoing rivalry with Exeter and it's paper.^[8] It described initiation rites of Andover's secret societies:

Pomp's Pond was the site of some initiation rites into secret societies.

He was first ordered to provide a supper for the society at his rooms... at twelve o'clock, he was sent out on the campus behind the Academy to wait for what might follow. At about one o'clock he was seized by his fellows, blindfolded, and ridden on a rail down to Pomp's Pond, those accompanying him rattling empty bottles all the time to give the effect of clanking chains. After arriving at the pond, he was buried in a grave up to his head, and then baptized with an abominable mixture of mucilage and ginger ale, this operation closing the ceremonies.

— Claude Moore Feuss, 1917 (describing events of 1884)^[9]

Andover's secret societies had become recognized by the school, as the paper reported in 1884.^[10]

Early years

Coverage of the Andover-Exeter sports rivalry in 1888.

Sports coverage was important in these early years, and reporting was generally skewed in Andover's favor. Claude Moore Feuss, a former head of School (then called headmaster) who published a history of the academy, described the Phillipian's coverage of rival teams as "ungenerous to opponents".^[11] The paper described the pitching of student baseball pitcher Alfred Stearns as follows:

Stearns, under the pressure of the most continued yelling, hooting, rattle-shaking, and every conceivable annoyance of Exeter's representatives, pitched a wonderful game.

— Claude Moore Feuss^[11]

Stearns was a Phillipian editor who later became headmaster.^[12] In 1885, an editorial advocated against hiring a local professional baseball pitcher to help Andover's baseball team win against the town; it was a matter of "school honesty and honor", wrote the student.^[13] The paper sometimes urged students to have greater participation in sports:

Every student in an academy like this should be interested in athletic sports. The very scholarly student often makes the excuse that he don't (sic) understand the games, and really has not time for them. And so the physical sports are left to a certain class who, while they are perfectly willing to incur all the expense, are obliged too frequently to resort to the subscription list or hat-passing.

— Claude Feuss^[14][15]

The 1883 Andover football squad.

The Phillipian touted the scholarship of the school's athletes, reporting that athletics and scholarship were not mutually antagonistic as had been commonly thought, but that "football is an intellectual game, not merely a test of physical strength, and that the active scholarship rule is favorable not only to scholarship, but also to football success."^[16]

Historical subscription prices

Selected years

Year	Frequency	Price per year	Notes
1878	Biweekly	$1.00	[1]
1885	Weekly	$1.75	[1]
1887	Twice weekly	$2.50
1913		$.05/issue
2017	Weekly	Free

Twentieth century

A section of the front page in 1913. Cost? Five cents.

The paper's length was typically four pages, although at one point it expanded to eight pages, but was scaled back.^[17] In the early 1900s, page size was increased.^[17] From 1907 to 1917, a committee of faculty members supervised the publication nominally, by approving the selection of student editors.^[17]

In 1974, following the merger of Abbot Academy and Phillips Academy, the paper's offices were located at Evans Hall.^[18] One privilege of working on The Phillipian during those days was being allowed to stay out late on Wednesday nights:^[18]

Our secret was The Phillipian, the student newspaper, which came out weekly. You could say that working on the school paper was for nerds, but we loved it for a lot of reasons. One of them was that on Wednesday nights when we were putting out the paper, we could stay in the newspaper offices in the basement of Evans Hall all night if we needed to. With girls.

— report in Newsweek magazine,2010^[18]

Then-senior Dana Delany wrote an op-ed in 1974^[19] about her experience of being a one-year student during the school's first year of co-education; she went on to a career in acting.

A forum for controversy

The publication often allows students to air their views in a public forum. Editorials, op-ed pieces, and letters to the editor have sometimes stirred campus-wide debate.

In 2003, a student and Phillipian columnist criticized the school for its lack of appropriate mental health services, after she had difficulty during her Andover years of adjusting to a romantic breakup.^[21] She asserted that the school's negative attitude towards students who needed counseling might discourage students from seeking help.^[21] In 2013, a letter to the editor expressed concern regarding gender equity; the writer complained that in a school in which over half of the faculty were women, that since 1973, women were chosen to be school president only four times.^[22] The writer added that from 1973 to 2013, there were only nine female editors of The Phillipian as opposed to thirty-three male editors.^[22][23] In 2015, male athletes wrote a letter to the editor complaining how the male athlete sports-oriented culture was an indirect cause of sexism and led to an unbalanced "hook-up culture" at the school.^[24]

Sometimes refusing to publish a point of view has caused controversy. For example, Marie Sapienza claimed that her English teacher had fondled her when she had been a 15-year-old at the school; later, when she was in college, she tried to publish a letter in the paper about the alleged assault, but was rebuffed.^[25]

Since The Phillipian publishes its archives, it has been a source of public information regarding disputes in the larger political sphere. For example, the paper was a source of news about whether Republican politician Jeb Bush had been a socialist during his student years at Andover.^[26]

The publishing process

Generally each springtime, outgoing student editors choose the next batch of editors for the following year. Editorial meetings take place in a basement room in Morse Hall.^[27] According to a report in Town & Country magazine, there is no censorship of The Phillipian.^[27] While there may be no formal censorship, there have been some rules and restrictions; for example, a report in 2011 said that student editors were discouraged from contacting the school's trustees, and that trustees were asked by the administration not to speak to student reporters.^[28] In 2017, the paper has a policy of censoring out the names of student writers, possibly as a way of shielding their identities on the internet. At editorial meetings, there are two faculty advisers who critique last week's paper and offer suggestions for improvement.^[27] Academy instructor Thomas T. Lyons, who believed that "teachers shouldn't be dull", served as an adviser for several decades in the latter half of the twentieth century.^[29] In addition, The Phillipian serves as a reference for the school. It publishes an annual survey of students and student life.^[27]

Social aspects

The Phillipian is in many respects a social club and a way for students to form lifelong friendships. Grace Tully, a contributor who graduated in 2014, described her experience at the paper as being one of passionate sleepless nights of writing and serving as a "second home":

...we are inseparable. ... we all love what we stand for ... the Phillipian led me to mentors and role models ... the basement of Morse is becoming a second home ... we are passionate... transform us into aspiring journalists, loving every new sleepless night ... we dedicate all of our time, some of our health, and most our sanity to the well-being of that paper ... 60 sleepless hours, the countless coffee stains and cigarettes strewn across my bedroom floor...

— Grace Tully, 2014, ^[30]

The Phillipian sponsors an annual bus trip to New York City for student contributors to visit the New York Times, ABC News, and other media-related venues.

Honors and awards

• 2012 National Scholastic Press Association Newspaper Pacemaker Award^[31]
• 2015 Kailash Sundaram, The Price of an Andover Education: Three Students’ Difficult Transitions to Andover^[32]
• 2015 Opinion: David Shin, On Discussions and Diversity^[32]
• 2015 Reporter of the Year: Kailash Sundaram, The Price of an Andover Education: Three Students’ Difficult Transitions to Andover^[32]
• 2015 Design Infographic: Jamie Chen^[32]

Notable alumni

Jonathan Dee.

Seth Moulton.

• Chris Agee, poet, essayist and editor (graduated 1974)
• Jonathan Alter, senior editor and columnist at Newsweek (graduated 1975)
• H.G. "Buzz" Bizzinger, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of Friday Night Lights (graduated 1972)
• Susan Chira, assistant managing editor for news of The New York Times (graduated 1976)
• Jonathan Dee, author (graduated 1980)
• Charles Finch, author (graduated 1998)
• Bart Giamatti, president of Yale and baseball commissioner (graduated 1956)^[33]
• Chris Hughes, co-founder of Facebook and former editor-in-chief of The New Republic (graduated 2002)^[34]
• Victor Kiam, former owner of the New England Patriots (graduated 1944)
• Gary Lee, award-winning journalist for The Washington Post and TIME (graduated 1974)
• Seth Moulton, U.S. Representative (MA-6) and Iraq War veteran (graduated 1997)^[35]
• Gerard Piel, publisher of the new Scientific American magazine (graduated 1933)
• Daniel Schwerin, main speechwriter for Hillary Clinton (graduated 2000)
• Joshua Steiner, Head of Industry Verticals at Bloomberg LP (graduated 1983)

Phillipian writers have had careers in publications including The New York Times, USA Today, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, The New Yorker and Time.

See also

• The Exonian
• The Lawrence

References

External links

• The Phillipian Online
• The Phillipian Archives
• The Phillipian CXXXVII YouTube video promoting The Phillipian 2014
• 2015 Phillipian trip to New York City YouTube video summary of visit to New York Times, 9/11 memorial, ABC News
• 2014 Phillipian trip to New York City