Journalism was agitated in Otterbein University as early as 1852 when the Board of Trustees heartily recommended the publication of a magazine, but there is no evidence that the project ever got beyond the resolution stage. In 1864, twelve years later, the Board of Trustees again recommended the publication of a magazine, authorizing the issue of the first number as soon as two thousand subscribers should be obtained. This requirement of two thousand advance subscribers proved practically prohibitive and gave a quietus to a college journal for another twelve years when, in January 1876, the first number of the Otterbein Dial was issued under the auspices of the faculty and students of the university. Professor J. E. Guitner served as managing editor, and Professor Thomas McFadden as the publisher, and the remaining members of the faculty as editorial contributors, while the students were encouraged to contribute. It was a very respectable college journal, as anyone who is familiar with the literary ability of Professor Guitner would expect. The journal was issued monthly, ten months in a year, at $1.00 per year [approximately $24.00 in 2019]. The journal was undoubtedly useful to the university, but as members of the faculty were heavily burdened with work before they assumed this gratuitous editorial service, the journal proved to be short-lived.
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