The Howard University student newspaper The Hilltop has just finished its first week of daily publication. The change makes Howard University the first Historically Black College and University (HBCU) to have a daily student newspaper. Editors at the award-winning 81-year-old paper told the Washington Informer they were inspired to switch from publication twice weekly to every weekday after meeting the editors of Wayne State University’s South End. Editor-in-chief Ruth Tisdale told the Informer: “I thought to myself, they are a smaller school with a smaller staff and they produce a daily. If they can do it, then why not the Hilltop?” Editor-in-chief Tisdale also explained in a column the newspaper also made the switch to help their reporters get experience working for a daily newspaper in order to find work after graduation: “Because there has not been such an endeavor undertaken student journalists at HBCUs before, many recruiters passed over qualified and talented students from HBCUs because of lack of college daily experience.”

In their first week of daily publication The Hilltop ran stories on the 138th anniversary of Howard, a trend of female students dying their hair blond, a discussion of gadgets on campus, and skyrocketing property values in LeDroit Park.