Founded in 1926, it features stories about current events on campus and the community as well as student life, sports, arts and opinion.

The paper's local content has expanded in recent years to cover regional news including elections and other events in the Waterloo community.

In 2011, The Cord made the decision to remove its World section from print due to a lack of student reader interest.

Campus and Local merged to create one strong news section and the online content grew two-fold while the print product decreased to a maximum of 16 pages.

At the 2015 Canadian University Press national conference, campus news editor Shelby Blackley won the Johnny award for Best Sports Writing.

At the 2016 Canadian University Press national conference, photo editor Will Huang won the Johnny for Student Photojournalist of the Year.

In 2016, The Cord won Outstanding Campus Newspaper and Best Website from the Canadian Community News Association awards.

In 2017, senior news editor Kaitlyn Severin won the Johnny Award for Student Journalist of the Year.