What Kind of Stories and Sections Does The Tartan Cover?

The Tartan is Carnegie Mellon University's student newspaper, and its content is organized into a fixed set of sections that span hard news, sports, opinion, features, and arts. If you want to find a specific type of story, the fastest route is to use the section names in the site's navigation rather than searching by topic. The sections below reflect what the publication actually labels and publishes, based on its current front page and story listings.

News sections

The Tartan splits news into two geographic scopes:

• CMU News — campus-focused reporting. Examples from the current front page include CMU's rise to No. 14 in the U.S. News National Universities rankings, progress on the Hall of Sciences and other campus improvements, a pause on LCAL meetings after a Dietrich professor's social media posts, and flooding and electrical damage from thunderstorms.
• Pittsburgh News — coverage of Oakland, Squirrel Hill, and the wider Pittsburgh region, per the publication's own description.

Both live under the same "News" umbrella, so a story about the city and a story about campus sit side by side in the feed.

Sports

Sports is one of the most active sections, and it mixes several formats:

• Athlete spotlights — individual profiles such as "Athlete Spotlight: Savannah Xu" and "Alex Feies of men's tennis team named Athlete of the Week."
• Game recaps and analysis — for example, coverage of early NCAA football season timing controversy and rankings shakeup, and the Pirates' collapse after a hot start.
• Weekly roundups — recurring items like "Athletes of the week for the start of fall 2026."
• Pro and draft news — stories such as Kadyen McDonald being selected in the second round and the Steelers choosing Allar in the third.

If you follow a specific team or athlete, the spotlight and "athlete of the week" formats are the most reliable recurring features.

Opinion and Forum

Opinion content is grouped under Forum and includes several distinct labels:

Recent examples include an EdBoard piece arguing dark humor only works when punching up, a letter from Anthony Cacciato, and op-eds on topics like not being busy, the city's green space, Waymo, feminism, and an "Existential en Español" column. This is the section to check if you want argument and commentary rather than reported news.

Features

Features covers campus life, culture, and human-interest stories. Current examples include what's new in dining (Korean cuisine and sweet treats), the history of Jehovah's Witnesses on campus, the Witchcraft Club, the Bridge Club competing in the Collegiate Bridge Bowl, and student-built resale platforms CMUsed and College Cart. This section tends to run longer-form or profile-style pieces.

Arts and culture

The arts coverage is split into several named subsections:

• pillbox — the arts and culture vertical
• Music
• Movies
• Comics
• Natrat — a long-running Tartan feature

SciTech

SciTech covers science and technology stories. A current example is NYU professors and OpenAI solving the Navier-Stokes Equations.

Other recurring items

• Novel-Tea — appears in the navigation as its own feature
• PaperPDF — a PDF edition of the paper
• Commencement — commencement-related coverage
• About / Contact Us — non-editorial pages

How to use this to find what you want

If you already know your interest, go straight to the matching section: Sports for game and athlete coverage, Forum for opinion, Features for campus life, SciTech for research and tech, and the arts subsections for music, movies, and comics. If you're browsing, the front page mixes "Spotlighted Stories" from across sections, so it's a reasonable starting point before narrowing down. The publication also offers a newsletter signup if you'd rather have stories delivered than check sections manually.