The Charlatan is Carleton University’s independent news publication. Run by students for students, the Charlatan has been providing the Carleton community with news and entertainment for more than 75 years.
The first issue of the newspaper was published on Nov. 28, 1945, under the name the Carleton. In the 1970s, the name was changed to represent an edgier newspaper the editors sought to shape.
In 1988, the Charlatan became independent from the Carleton University Students’ Association and is now funded primarily through annual student levy fees and advertising.
As a not-for-profit corporation, the Charlatan’s finances are overseen by an independent Board of Directors comprised of student directors, journalism faculty representatives and professional journalists. To learn more about the board and its responsibilities, visit the board page.
In 2020, the Charlatan officially transitioned from a print publication to an online publication. The Charlatan website, launched in 2009, is updated regularly with content. Publication breaks occur throughout the year during reading weeks and exam sessions.
The Charlatan office is located in room 531 of the Unicentre on the fifth floor. The office houses hard copies of the newspaper’s constitution, bylaws, budget and latest audit (which are also accessible on the board page). All students are encouraged to drop by and check out the office’s extensive archives, which chronicle most of the issues published by the newspaper.
The Charlatan staff includes an editor-in-chief, two news editors, a national editor, a features editor, an opinions/editorial/blog editor, an arts and culture editor, a sports editor, a photo editor, a multimedia/web editor, a graphics editor, a copy editor and a social media manager. To learn more about this year’s staff members, visit the staff page.
The majority of the Charlatan’s staff members are voted in by contributing members of the publication. An election takes place annually in March to decide the editorial staff for the following publication year. Positions hired by management of the publication include the multimedia/web editor, graphics editor, copy editor and social media manager.
The Charlatan will only publish works by current 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.
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, copy editing or any other credited work).
The editorial staff meets each week to discuss what editorial stances the newspaper will take and other important decisions. The newspaper also holds weekly open meetings to review content published in the past week and provide feedback to contributors. All students are welcome to attend and can email editor.charlatan@gmail.com for more information.
The Charlatan’s editorial guidelines can be found here.
