What is The Tartan?

The Tartan is Carnegie Mellon University's student newspaper, published since 1906. It covers CMU campus news plus the surrounding Pittsburgh area — Oakland, Squirrel Hill, and the wider region — and it's readable online at thetartan.org. If you're a CMU student, a Pittsburgh local, or someone tracking university news, that's the audience it's written for.

What it covers

The paper organizes its coverage into standing sections, each with its own beat:

• News — campus administration, construction and facilities, university policy, and incidents affecting students
• Sports — varsity athletics, athlete spotlights, and professional Pittsburgh teams
• Features — campus life, dining, clubs, and student profiles
• Forum — opinion, editorials (EdBoard), letters to the editor, and op-eds
• SciTech — research and technology stories, often tied to CMU labs and faculty
• Pillbox — the arts and culture section, with music, movies, and comics

Recent headlines illustrate the range: a story on CMU rising to No. 14 in the U.S. News National Universities rankings, coverage of a Dietrich professor's social media controversy and the resulting pause on LCAL meetings, reporting on storm flooding and electrical damage on campus, and a feature on new Korean dining options. Sports coverage spans both CMU teams and Pittsburgh's pro franchises.

Who runs it

The Tartan is a student publication, and its bylines reflect that — stories are credited to student writers and editors, with recurring names like Octavia Liku, Aren Framil, and Tartan Admin appearing across news and sports. The masthead includes an editorial board (EdBoard) that writes the paper's institutional opinion pieces, separate from individual op-eds and letters.

How to read it

Everything is available on the website, organized by section and by story. The site also offers a newsletter signup if you want stories delivered rather than checking back manually. Individual stories carry author names and publication dates, so you can judge how current a piece is — useful given that campus news moves quickly.

What it's useful for

• CMU students and staff tracking policy changes, campus construction, and administrative decisions
• Prospective students and families wanting an unfiltered student view of campus life
• Pittsburgh residents following Oakland and Squirrel Hill coverage
• Researchers or journalists looking for student-press accounts of campus events

One caveat worth keeping in mind: as a student paper, its opinion and Forum content reflects student perspectives rather than institutional positions, and breaking-news coverage may be updated as a story develops.