In November 1901 the first North Texas student publication, the North Texas State Normal Journal, was published. From 1901 – 1905, the Normal Journal served as North Texas State Normal College’s literary journal and yearbook, as well as the student newspaper. Short stories, poems, and literary criticism were published on a monthly basis alongside coverage of national and international news and updates on campus life. The final issue of the year, in May, featured class pictures and other features commonly associated with a college yearbook. In 1906 students voted to nix the May issue of the Normal Journal and instead publish all annual retrospective content in the University’s first yearbook, The Cottontail.

According to James L. Rogers, as the North Texas State Normal College reached “degree-granting status in the fall of 1916, the old Normal Journal seemed too much a relic of the precollege years, with its quaint mixture of news, stories, verse, and homilies.”[1] The Normal Journal was discontinued and its content was divided into two new publications: Avesta, a quarterly literary journal, and The Campus Chat, a weekly newspaper. The first issue of The Campus Chat arrived on October 25, 1916. The paper was initially a monthly publication but later became semi-weekly.

In 1970 the campus newspaper was renamed to its current iteration, The North Texas Daily, commonly abbreviated to The NT Daily. The NT Daily is published four times a week, Tuesday through Friday, during the Spring and Fall semesters and once a week, on Thursdays, during the summer. The NT Daily is distributed free on campus with subscriptions available for alumni and other off-campus readers.  Additional multimedia content is published on the newspaper’s companion website, http://ntdaily.com .

UNT’s campus newspaper is non-profit and is completely written, edited, and designed by students in exchange for course credit. Notable former student journalists at North Texas include Journalist Bill Moyers (1953-1954), Journalist Mike Cochran (1957-1958), former Denton County State Representative Alonzo W. Jamison (1937-1938) and Regents Professor in the Mayborn School of Journalism Roy Busby (1957-1958).

1,876 issues of The Campus Chat and 2,063 issues of the North Texas Daily are available in UNT’s The Portal to Texas History digital library. UNT Special Collections has 50 issues of the North Texas State Normal Journal available for viewing in our Reading Room.

[1] The Story of North Texas, 125

– by Julie Judkins, Principal Archivist

North Texas’s first yearbook, The Cottontail, was dedicated to President Kendall, 1906.

Campus Chat staff members look at mock-ups, c. 1940s.

A male student poses holding a Campus Chat, 1942.

Female students read an issue of The Campus Chat in their dorm room, 1942.

Campus Chat journalists Paul Recer and Carolyn Paine, February 1961.

An NT Daily staff member holds an issue of the newspaper during an editorial meeting in 2013. Photo credit: Junebug Clark.