A scattered collection of Arthur contributors sat around a friendly living room this past Friday night, tired after talking to hundreds of students (sometimes each), and anxious to hear the results of the TCSA election campaign. We were both curious about who would form the next student union (to see results and an interview with re-elected president Sheldon Willerton, turn to the feature), and, naturally, whether our much-needed and overdue levy campaign had succeeded. Nine hours after the poll closed, I texted faster than I knew I could text to try to get any information I could. When my phone eventually rang, the caller didn’t sound excited. Another caller was on the other line, sounding sullen. I threw the phone to whoever would take it, and he didn’t sound excited either. “Oh…okay. Well, uh, thanks for calling.”
The room let out an exasperated sigh. Not the news we had wanted, needed, to hear. “I wouldn’t want to write that editorial,” remarked one of the disappointed voices in the room. Then the whisky came out and we started talking about how to handle this. Outrage, indifference, polite acceptance? Mostly we agreed that the discussion we have as a board, as editors, as writers has to shift. Rather than using the “if we get the levy” qualifier in our daydreams and budget plans, we have to say, “well, we didn’t... so, guys, what’s next?”
It’s true, this is not the editorial I wanted to write. It’d be so much nicer to write a celebratory ‘Good! We can have staff next year’ piece. Instead, it’s tempting to wax vitriolic and write a woeful Dear John letter to Trent undergrads, but it wouldn’t be terribly productive, and not entirely apt.
The question wasn’t- should Arthur exist? It was asking for a few more dollars per student. To run a newspaper and hire students. Which costs money. There is a false impression that we already have lots of money, and maybe this is a positive reflection on the paper. It looks well-run, there are staff, we have a focus on design, photography, type; it’s pretty, it’s weekly, it exists. Why would we need more money?
Or perhaps voters could have felt like the quality of the paper wasn’t high enough and voted no - ultimately affecting the quality of the paper. But I do not see this as a scathing review of the paper. Arthur will exist, it could just look very different.
The hard thing about this loss is how much work we put into the TCSA elections in general. In some ways, we essentially fulfill the function of the student union: to tell students what the heck is going on and when. This was especially hard in these past elections, when the election dates kept changing, the speeches were advertised last minute and essentially only through us. We reminded the TCSA that they should advertise their elections.
Copies of Arthur were open near the voting booth. When we campaigned, we opened up the feature so that after our excitable speeches, students could look into other groups. Levy groups wrote articles, bought advertising space, and sent us their campaign write-ups. And while I am incredibly happy and relieved that so many other student groups received their levy increases, it makes the loss more frustrating. Arthur’s role is so necessary, to provide a forum for students. Sometimes we’re critical about what’s going on in the university, other times we just lay out the information. This is when the elections are. Vote, damn it.
The strange thing about TCSA elections is that in Arthur running a levy campaign, we can only turn to full-time undergraduate students to ask for a little extra cash, when so many people are invested in the paper- part-time and graduate students, alumni, professors, university staff, and community members. There could be donations set up, subscriptions, other levies, perhaps. There are methods. It’s just unfortunate that we will now have to spend our time looking up alternate modes of funding rather than focusing on the excitement and absurdity that is the life of a student at Trent, the completely frustrating mess that is dealing with the Administration, and- this is actually amazing- participating in print media that is a forum for communication and community. We are the vehicle through which so many people get their news in Peterborough. How alumni stay in touch with the school. How full-time students plan find out about issues.
We lost by 108 students this year. In 2007, when Arthur ran a levy campaign, we lost by 304 votes. Voter turnout was 7.8 per cent higher this year than 2007, at 23.8 per cent, in elections that usually hover slightly above the 15 per cent of TCSA members needed to ratify the results. In the midst of being totally bummed out by election results, I shouted out “Hey! We only lost by a hundred votes!”
Arthur remains controversial; we’re not Trent News Feed, and we’re going to have opinions when our academic departments get hacked apart and our professors won’t get re-hired because they aren’t part-time contract faculty. The frustration will be palpable and transparent when our departments are at risk, when the whole damn reason we came to this school in the first place falls from under us.
Something Jes and I tried to do this year was lose a bit of the cynicism (that I was, admittedly, tempted to bring back full-force for a very sad editorial) and the sarcasm, lay issues out, let you get outraged on your own because it is pretty terrifying what is going on with our school (and to re-iterate, editorials will never unbiased news pieces). We are open submission, so tones and perspectives vary. For example, some of our writers are absolutely dedicated to Introductory Seminar Week (ISW). Others think it’s infantilizing. But so many students care about it and we try to reflect that in our coverage, no matter whether we had a terrifying first week of running away from chanters, or we were still beaming from the excitement of it all half-way through November.
But hey! At least there is the silver lining of being indexed to the Consumer Price Index (CPI). And since I am a silver-lining kind of editor, I think the next little while will serve as an overdue and priceless opportunity to evaluate our terms of production, budget, and staff model. I have faith that Arthur is going to be fine. But it is going to change considerably, and the direction it will take is up to the new editors and board, and the feedback of the staff collective and future contributors. What do we want our paper to be in the midst of our economic turmoil? What will change? Less staff? Will we print less often? How do we continue to report on what matters to Trent students? How do we continue to provide what is in so many ways a service to Trent and Peterborough? How do we keep doing our job?
Arthur will change, and perhaps those changes will affect the quality or quantity of the paper. But, we’re pretty smart cookies, and we have a lot of support from smart cookies like you (you’re reading this, right? That’s something). We will figure it out. And the more students and community members that are apart of that, the better.
