The newspaper serves the University of California, Berkeley campus and its surrounding community. It is published Monday through Friday during the academic year, and twice a week during the summer. Established in 1871, the Daily Californian is one of the oldest newspapers on the West Coast, and one of the oldest college newspapers in the country.
On several occasions, when the Daily Californian published an editorial unfavorable to a particular viewpoint, many of its free newspapers were discarded into the trash, presumably by those who disagreed with the editorial. The culprits were rarely ever found.
In November 2002, Berkeley Mayoral candidate Tom Bates admitted to trashing a thousand copies of the Daily Californian issue that endorsed his opponent, Mayor Shirley Dean. In May 2003, nearly 5,000 papers were stolen by students protesting coverage of the arrest of a Cal football player.
The largest act of theft took place in November 1996 when the paper's senior editorial board endorsed Proposition 209. Nearly 23,000 papers were stolen and tossed off the balcony of the newspaper's office.