On the morning of Friday, Aug. 14, The Daily Tar Heel newsroom got a tip: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was about to announce clusters of positive coronavirus cases in student housing, after only a week of in-person classes. The student-led independent newspaper broke the news before the university sent its campus-wide alert.
Over the weekend, more news of clusters trickled in — this time at a fraternity house and another dorm.
On Sunday, Editor-in-chief Anna Pogarcic says, the opinion editor decided to scrap the planned Monday editorial, and pivot to address the rapidly devolving reopening plan the university had been touting all summer. After a late-night power outage, Monday’s issue barely made it to the printer in time. The next day, tucked away on page 3, the new editorial headline proclaimed “UNC has a clusterf*** on its hands.” A photo of the headline quickly went viral.
Read this story and all our reporting for free — forever.
Sign up for our newsletter to support WABE’s mission of delivering independent, in-depth journalism — and hand-picked NPR stories that matter to Atlanta.
We will never share your email address with others. How does your newsletter sign-up support WABE and Public Media...
