California Patriot
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The California Patriot is an independent, student-run, glossy-covered magazine from the University of California, Berkeley.
[edit] Overview
The magazine's mission is to promote conservative politics and opinion at the University. The magazine prints eight issues a year, and is distributed on the Berkeley campus free of charge. Similarly, when a new issue is released, the Patriot homepage provides a link to a pdf version for reading. The Patriot also provides subscription options for those that would like it shipped to them.
Former members of the Patriot include founder Kelso Barnett and former California College Republicans State Chairman Michael Davidson, who ran for College Republican National Chairman in 2005.
[edit] Notable stories
In 2002, the California Patriot broke a campus story that the University of California planned to host a 9/11 Memorial event while deliberately excluding any mention of the United States so as not to be too pro-America. Bill O'Reilly hosted the editor of the California Patriot to tell the story on Fox News. After publishing the decision, many UC Berkeley alumni telephoned Chancellor Berdahl with displeasure. Berkeley administration leveraged the student government to reverse the tone of the affair and be quite patriotic.
In 2003, the California Patriot broke a news story on Berkeley's campus about misappropriation of money by an organ of the student government. The Graduate Assembly was accused of spending money on items expressly barred by the government's bylaws. The story contributed to the subsequent campus debate and initiative for the Graduate Assembly to secede from the ASUC. The initiative failed by a general student vote.
The 2003 story exposing funding misappropriation also sparked a series of law suits in the Judicial Council seeking to overrule the Graduate Assembly internal rules and decide the lurking issue of the balance of power between the ASUC Senate and the Graduate Assembly. The Senate advocates used the story as a basis for policing the Graduate Assembly. The Judicial Council struck a number of Graduate Assembly bylaws but declined to go as far as Senate advocates sought.
Another story the California Patriot published on the Graduate Assembly opened a serious wound for the student government: the investigative reporting confirmed that the Assembly spent many thousands of student mandatory fees to fund a campaign against a California ballot proposition. Since the government is a non profit organization, it was not proper to use mandatory student fees to fund a public political campaign. The story sparked a flurry of student demands for mandatory fee refunds, Senate oversight hearings on the Assembly, and more Judicial Council suits by Senate advocates.
In the Fall 2006 semester, the Wall Street Journal published a front page story on the Berkeley College Republicans and the California Patriot discussing the growing influence of the conservative organization and publication on a campus with a national reputation of being a liberal mecca.
