It all started in 1905. The first report, the first interview, and, eventually, even the first-ever divisive opinion piece. For the past one hundred and nineteen years, The Chronicle has given Duke students, faculty, and community members the platform they need to let their voices be heard. From breaking the news on key issues to providing commentary on the most important issues of our time, such as DSG debates and sports victories and losses alike, The Chronicle has been there for it all. Decades of writers and readers alike have relied on our paper for fair, accurate, well-written, and insightful reporting. With that said, and with lots of gratitude and sadness, The Chronicle has decided to shut down ahead of its one-hundred-and-twentieth year.
Over the years, The Chronicle has adapted to best serve the student body. In 1993, we incorporated as the Duke Student Publishing Company, gaining independence from Duke and dependence on a Board of old staff members who still call their time at The Chronicle their greatest accomplishment. We are proud to say that, with this board, we have prioritized making all voices heard. For instance, we created a website, started the Community Editorial Board to highlight diverse voices and allow some freedom from our DSPC Board, shut down the Community Editorial Board in 2022 with no explanation, and even branched into satire. Despite The Dirt and The Chomicle being little-read and little-respected, we have still allowed these well-loved (by us) publications to take center stage. Additionally, we have protected our writers by censoring comments on our social media posts, even when they get more likes than the actual article.
The Chronicle has evolved with the times, and we are proud to be the first publication to use AI to write articles through The Dirt. We have always valued technology and its ability to write articles with our typical so-so level of quality in much less time, allowing us to rely less on the labor of desperate freshmen and more on the opinions of our editorial team. The Chronicle has also extended its ventures with Artificial Intelligence by setting up a web of pseudonyms and fake identities on campus and hiring actors to play them. Through the use of GPT 4, The Chronicle has managed to mass-produce what may be the greatest opinion pieces of our time. We have ardently beseeched artificial intelligence to create thought-provoking, divisive pieces of literature. Furthermore, we have managed to beg for the abolition of fall break, praise Wagner in a totally chill non-antisemitic way while enforcing notions of Eurocentrism in music theory, remind students that they ought to attend class, and inquire on the essential question of whether or not comedy ought to be funny.
We thank you for your time, patience, and support over the years. It has been an honor to write the funniest of serious opinion pieces and the unfunniest of satire, and we seriously cannot believe you have read it all and continued to support us. We have faced many obstacles together, from the fall of physical newspapers to the rise of our biggest competitor, The Fluke News. We believe that they do a superior job of reporting on the issues that matter and representing the voices of the student body, the Durham community, and the world as a whole. Simply put, they are better than us in every conceivable way. We are confident that we are leaving the future of serious, hard-hitting journalism in great hands. In fact, we recommend they receive all of your money and nominate them for the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Did we mention they deserve your money? It’s been a fantastic run.
Signing off,
The Chronicle Editorial Board