History
The Founding
The First 40 Years
In its early years, The Hoya published once a week, focused mainly on internal, campus affairs, promoting student organizations and school functions, and devoted a large part of its coverage to sports. In 1930, The Hoya received the highest rating given to a college weekly publication by the National Collegiate Press Association.
In the late 1930s, international events began to influence content. The Hoya was one of the few student groups to remain active during the war years, and its pages at this time juxtapose coverage of blood drives, war bond programs and graduate casualties with details of tea dances and intramural athletics.
In the postwar era, the paper’s focus returned to internal campus issues, perhaps reflecting the desire of veterans, who made up most of the student body, to return to normal life. The 1950s saw the introduction of two recurring features: the Basketball Preview, which first appeared Dec. 3, 1957, and the April Fools’ issue.
One of the high points of The Hoya’s entertainment reporting came in 1964, when one of its reporters managed to interview The Beatles, who were in Washington, D.C., for their first live concert appearance in the United States. The interview appeared in the Feb. 20, 1964 issue.
The 1970s and Watergate
Women’s athletics received more detailed coverage, as did the impact of Title IX, and by the end of the decade, references to “girls” and “hoyettes” had been eliminated from the sports pages. Issues in the spring of 1973 contained coverage of attempts by gay students to organize and obtain official recognition.
The years of 1973 and 1974 saw a number of articles on the Nixon administration and the Watergate scandal. The coverage of Watergate is possibly linked to the fact that a number of players in the Watergate investigations had Georgetown connections.
In the post-Watergate era, perhaps influenced by the event, The Hoya began to run investigative journalism pieces. As a result, the paper went from being viewed as generally supportive of the administration to being one of the university’s chief antagonists. The spring of 1977 brought perhaps the most significant example of this when a story about the firing of five resident assistants led to a university hearing about the entire residential life system and, ultimately, to the resignation of both a vice president and a dean.
The 1980s and Expansion
The 1990s to Present
In 1998, The Hoya launched a website, thehoya.com. The Hoya currently has one official blog, The Fourth Edition, launched in 2012, which provides a lighthearted take on Georgetown and D.C. news. The paper’s other blog, Hoya Paranoia, which launched in 2008, used to cover university athletics throughout the year as well as providing commentary on national and international sports news but stopped being used in 2016. The Hoya joined Facebook in 2008 and has been on Twitter since 2009.
The Campaign for Independence
In a Letter From the Editor in the first issue of the fall 2010 semester, The Hoya acknowledged that the notorious April Fools’ day issue of 2009 was distasteful but assured its readers that the newspaper would no longer participate in satirical issues. No April Fools’ issues have been published since 2009.
Negotiations for independence are currently ongoing, although The Hoya’s board of directors voted in 2010 to delay independence until the national economy and the paper’s financial situation becomes more favorable.