The Fourth Estate, sometimes stylized as the IV Estate or IV, is the student newspaper of George Mason University, headquartered in Fairfax County, Virginia with an independent City of Fairfax, Virginia postal address. It was known as The Gunston Ledger from 1963 to 1969 and the Broadside from 1969 to 2013, until 2013 when it merged with the website Connect2Mason to form the new student run newspaper, the Fourth Estate. The newspaper is a division of GMU Student Media along side WGMU Radio. The Fourth Estate's audience and subject matter consists of issues related to faculty, staff, students, alumni, and other affiliates of George Mason University, Northern Virginia Community College, and the broader Northern Virginia sub-region of the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Area. History Fourth Estate, formerly known the as the Broadside is George Mason University's official student newspaper, it began its life as The Gunston Ledger in 1963. The Gunston Ledger, whose first issue appeared on the then George Mason College campus located in Bailey's Crossroads, Virginia on October 15, 1963, was an eight-page monthly printed on 12 inch by 9 inch paper. Its staff of twelve students included a photograph editor, Richard Sparks, who contributed two to four photos to each issue. The content consisted of campus news, features on GMC faculty and students, engagement and wedding notices, and some commentary. The Ledger became Broadside on October 28, 1969. It was noted in that issue that the name change was part of an effort to remake the paper into more of a news instrument like the early publications of the nation's revolutionary fathers. Broadside was a weekly paper which contained sixteen or more pages in each issue. Photography in Broadside was mostly limited to campus events and personalities. Broadside began printing in a broadsheet format in 1982 (12-inch by 24-inch), but moved to a tabloid format in 1986 (printed on 12 inch by 12 inch paper). Broadside changed sizes again in fall 1992 when it began being produced in a new tabloid format (11 inch by 17 inch). It would continue to be funded by tax payer dollars and ad revenues. During that same year the newspaper began publishing twice a week on Mondays and Thursdays. The newspaper again underwent a change in format in fall 2000 when it switched back to a broadsheet (printed on 11.5-inch by 22-inch paper). Broadside remained a twice weekly publication until fall 2004