The Exonian, the oldest preparatory school paper in America, is published weekly by its student board at Phillips Exeter Academy

Phillips Exeter Academy

Phillips Exeter Academy is a private secondary school located in Exeter, New Hampshire, in the United States.Exeter is noted for its application of Harkness education, a system based on a conference format of teacher and student interaction, similar to the Socratic method of learning through asking...

. Over half the student body, as well as many parents and alumni/ae, hold subscriptions to the paper, which acts as a forum for the ideas of the Exeter community and prints extensive news, sports, and feature articles, such as faculty member profiles. The paper was begun as a weekly in 1878, when three Exeter students, two of whom were roommates in Abbot Hall, decided to publish a newspaper for the Academy. The first issue appeared on Saturday, April 6, of that year. It is currently available online (see External Links).

Over its 130-year history, The Exonian has had a number of student contributors who went on to become authors and journalists. The list includes historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.

Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.

Arthur Meier Schlesinger, Jr. was an American historian and social critic whose work explored the American liberalism of political leaders including Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Robert F. Kennedy. A Pulitzer Prize winner, Schlesinger served as special assistant and "court historian"...

 (class of 1933); playwright and screenwriter Donald Ogden Stewart

Donald Ogden Stewart

Donald Ogden Stewart was an American author and screenwriter.-Life:His hometown was Columbus, Ohio. He graduated from Yale University, where he became a brother to the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity , in 1916 and was in the Naval Reserves in World War I.After the war he started to write and found...

 (class of 1912); a number of staff writers for The New Yorker

The New Yorker

The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...

magazine, including essayist Dwight Macdonald

Dwight Macdonald

Dwight Macdonald was an American writer, editor, film critic, social critic, philosopher, and political radical.-Early life and career:...

 (class of 1924), jazz critic Whitney Balliett

Whitney Balliett

Whitney Lyon Balliett was a jazz critic and book reviewer for the New Yorker and was with the journal from 1954 until 2001....

 (class of 1945), and George Trow (class of 1961); and writers Gore Vidal

Gore Vidal

Gore Vidal is an American author, playwright, essayist, screenwriter, and political activist. His third novel, The City and the Pillar , outraged mainstream critics as one of the first major American novels to feature unambiguous homosexuality...

 (class of 1943); George Plimpton

George Plimpton

George Ames Plimpton was an American journalist, writer, editor, and actor. He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review.-Early life:...

 (class of 1944); Alex Beam

Alex Beam

Alex Beam is an American writer and journalist, who is currently a columnist for The Boston Globe.-Biography:Beam grew up in Washington, D.C., as his father Jacob D. Beam was a diplomat. Beam attended Phillips Exeter Academy, where he was Foreign Correspondent for the twice-weekly school...

 and Joyce Maynard

Joyce Maynard

Daphne Joyce Maynard is an American author known for writing with candor about her life, as well as for her works of fiction and hundreds of essays and newspaper columns, often about parenting and family...

 (class of 1971); Ned Lamont

Ned Lamont

Edward Miner "Ned" Lamont, Jr. is a businessman and heir and most recently an unsuccessful candidate for the 2010 Democratic nomination for Governor of Connecticut. On May 22, 2010, Lamont received more than fifteen percent of the vote at the state Democratic convention, and appeared on the...

 and Nelson Graves (class of 1972); and David Folkenflik

David Folkenflik

David Folkenflik is an American reporter based in New York City and serving as media correspondent for National Public Radio. His work primarily appears on the NPR news programs Morning Edition and All Things Considered. He also appears regularly on the "Media Circus" segment on Talk of the...

 (class of 1987). The ranks of former Exonian contributors also include editors at Time

Time (magazine)

Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...

, Forbes

Forbes

Forbes is an American publishing and media company. Its flagship publication, the Forbes magazine, is published biweekly. Its primary competitors in the national business magazine category are Fortune, which is also published biweekly, and Business Week...

, and Foreign Affairs

Foreign Affairs

Foreign Affairs is an American magazine and website on international relations and U.S. foreign policy published since 1922 by the Council on Foreign Relations six times annually...

magazines, as well as reporters at The Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....

, The Black River Tribune, The Washington Post

The Washington Post

The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...

, The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

, The Boston Globe

The Boston Globe

The Boston Globe is an American daily newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts. The Boston Globe has been owned by The New York Times Company since 1993...

, Time, The National Enquirer

The National Enquirer

The National Enquirer is an American supermarket tabloid now published by American Media Inc . Founded in 1926, the tabloid has gone through a variety of changes over the years....

and many other newspapers and magazines.

The newspaper The Grave at the fictional Gravesend Academy from A Prayer for Owen Meany

A Prayer for Owen Meany

A Prayer for Owen Meany was the seventh published novel by American writer John Irving when it appeared in 1989. It tells the story of John Wheelwright and his best friend Owen Meany growing up together in a small New England town during the 1950-60s...

is based on The Exonian.