The Flat Hat
The Flat Hat is the official student newspaper at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. It prints Tuesdays during the College's academic year. It began printing twice-weekly in 2007; since its inception in 1911, The Flat Hat had printed weekly. It returned to weekly printing in 2015.[1] In fall 2020, The Flat Hat began printing biweekly due to restrictions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. The Flat Hat staff operates out of its office in William and Mary's Sadler Center.[2]
Type
Anna Arnsberger
Ethan Qin
October 2, 1911
1,600
The newspaper is printed as a broadsheet. During the early 1990s, The Flat Hat was printed with a colored front page and a separate colored variety section. Today, The Flat Hat's front page and back page are generally printed in color while the inside pages are printed in black and white.
Staff[edit]
The exact number of staff who work on The Flat Hat varies each year but generally ranges between forty-five and fifty permanent staff members (students who are listed in the staff box of each issue of the newspaper). Students with or without experience in journalism are often encouraged to join. In 2010, the newspaper began an intern program focusing on providing journalistic experiences for underclassmen at William and Mary.
Like most other collegiate student newspapers, the staff includes not only reporters and columnists but an accounting department, a copyediting section, an Ombudsman[9] and an executive and editorial staff.
In spring 2021, The Flat Hat published its first annual diversity report[10] which aggregates information submitted by staff members in a voluntary form. This report includes information of staff demographic percentages including but not limited to racial background, gender identity and sexual orientation.
Major stories[edit]
The Flat Hat was the first news medium, student or professional, to break the news about the Wren Cross controversy,[11] doing so in a news brief. After the decision received more journalistic attention, The Flat Hat continued to follow the controversy, including revocation of a twelve-million-dollar donation,[12] placement of the cross in a display case,[13][14] and, ultimately, Gene Nichol's resignation of the presidency of the College[15] (which was impelled in part by the controversy surrounding the cross in the Wren chapel controversy[16]).
In May, 2010, The Flat Hat was the first journalistic source in Williamsburg, professional or other, to announce the election of Scott Foster to the city council governing Williamsburg.[17] Foster was the first William and Mary student ever to be elected to the council, and he had been endorsed by the editorial board of The Flat Hat.
In 2010, The Flat Hat was the first news source to report that ESPN continued to use a William and Mary athletic emblem that had been banned by the NCAA in 2006. ESPN ultimately discontinued the use of the emblem.
Special issues[edit]
The Fat Head[edit]
On April 1 of every year, in honor of April Fool's Day, the newspaper prints The Fat Head to accompany the usual semi-weekly issue. The Fat Head is a humor issue, usually with falsified articles and satirical commentary.
Best of the Burg[edit]
Every year around mid-December, The Flat Hat prints a special edition of the newspaper titled "Best of the Burg." The "Best of the Burg" issue outlines the staff's favorite picks for several restaurants in the Williamsburg area. In recent history, consistent winners have been The Cheese Shop, Aromas and The Trellis Restaurant all located in the Merchants Square area of Colonial Williamsburg.