The Medium has sparked frequent protests from the student body and pressure from the administration over material they have published.

The paper parted from its roots as a traditional college newspaper and became, like AFTA, an outlet for various political persuasions, non-mainstream arts reviews, news, and Marcinko's personal writings.

For example, the newspaper published front-page photos of a dismembered corpse for a 1985 review of the book, Hollywood Babylon II, a glowing tribute to gay love in a piece titled "Romancing the Anus", as well as a parody of the media coverage surrounding the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986, in a piece subtitled "People explode every day".

[citation needed] As Bill-Dale Marcinko was an instructor at Rutgers and not a tenured professor, he was eventually terminated by the university, and had less impact on the newspaper after his departure.

The resulting suit, Edwards v. Rutgers, was dismissed after the paper agreed to run a front-page apology.

"[5] Rutgers University President Richard McCormick called the cartoon "deplorable" and "outrageous in its cruelty", and later met with the editorial board and urged them to take accountability.

[6] In 2012, the paper again came under fire for running a similar article titled "What about the good things Hitler did?"

[8] In 2013, The Medium published an article comparing members of the Alpha Chi Omega sorority to livestock and other fat barn animals, sparking outrage from the student body and members of Alpha Chi Omega, which was shutting down due to a lack of new pledges.

[12] The Medium issued a public apology the following week, writing that the article "was cruel and relied on cheap jokes in lieu of humor".

Moreover, The Medium has abandoned the famous Mr. Monkey logo by replacing it with "Fratypus", the newly adopted mascot.

It also regularly contains fake reviews of eateries (including the Rutgers dining halls), movies, and campus events.