Hello! We, Bethan, and Cameron, are very excited to announce that we will be running as co-editors for Arthur Volume 57 for the 2021-22 academic year! We have both been working with Arthur throughout Volume 56 and are excited to present our platforms and hopefully continue working with you as Arthur continues its important and radical work.
Bore da! My name is Bethan Bates. Although I have only been working for Arthur since September I have already fallen in love with this funny little paper.
Let me tell you a little story. The setting is Norwich, Norfolk (U.K.), the date is July 2020, and I have just been told my year abroad has been cancelled. What on earth am I to do? My first mission was to contact the university newspaper back home, one I had been working with for a couple of years already, I was ready to become the Editor, and this was my moment. In my time with The Waterfront, Swansea, I worked as a food writer and editor, the creative writing editor, a proof-reader, graphic designer, social media manager, and of course the editor-in-chief. This opportunity was just incredible for me as I got to learn how a newspaper worked almost every step of the way. So, let’s jump to a year later; the year abroad has been approved and I had a new mission in mind – find a newspaper to work for at Trent University. I was ready to work for Arthur in any capacity I could so when I saw three roles being advertised, I applied for all three! And I was offered a role as part of the communications team here. Due to my editorial experience, I was given full responsibility for The Courier, a weekly email newsletter, this has given me so much joy and excitement over the past six months as well as the opportunity to read all about what is going on in my new home. And once again, I feel ready to become an editor, so let me tell you about what I want to provide to you all and our readers in the new year.
My particular focusses for Volume 57 fall into two main categories. Firstly, readership; I want to boost our readership across all platforms: social media, website, print papers, newsletters. I will do this by focussing on creating regular and accessible content that will help people stay engaged on a day-to-day basis. For instance, I will schedule our social media, so we have content going out each day via different platforms. Another way I will do this is by working to produce bi-monthly print papers which will be available across campuses and downtown Peterborough-Nogojiwanong. My second main focus will be to provide opportunities to writers and staff members. This year I was able to attend NASH-84 where I was honoured to hear panels, seminars, and more from prominent members of the student journalism community and learn about how to be a better, more ethical, more inclusive journalist. Furthermore, working with events such as NASH means that there will be opportunities to showcase writer’s work. I have also appreciated the opportunities to have workshops with OPIRG as I think that it is important that our newspaper is actively working to be anti-racist and inclusive. This type of opportunity and relationship is something I want to preserve as well as making a bigger effort to make personal and professional relationships with other student newspapers across Canada (and the world). I would also be interested in looking into the budget to try and give our writers more hours per week in their contracts so you can have more time to dedicate to your work and give us more scope for big investigative journalist pieces. Furthermore, I would want to look at ensuring we have an inclusive and representative staff collective that includes students of racialised groups, disabled students, queer students, international students, and more. I think as a paper that began as a radical independent newspaper in 1966, we must practice what we preach in regard to inclusivity. One of the final things I want to draw attention to is how we can use our platform to hold Trent University accountable and make changes that will better the lives of students and staff. This work is already being done by many of you and I want to support this and see how we can make this bigger! I am also interested in restructuring the staff collective to provide you all with great opportunities. One way in which I would do this is by having senior and junior journalist roles so that our more experienced writers can earn and work more whilst also allowing us to provide jobs to new writers who may not have worked in journalism before.
Hey folks! My name is Cameron Noble. I have been a contributing student journalist at Arthur for just over a year, during which time I also had the honour of designing the new masthead and logo as the in-house graphic designer. As a journalist I am analyzing the rise of Canadian far-right extremism. I am a socialist, anti-fascist, and I believe unequivocally in the power of us working students to build a parallel culture, community, and power to confront the systems that see us exploited.
Arthur newspaper has two major missions to tackle in the coming years:
Responding appropriately to the ever-changing technology and cultural media landscape will be a priority for me as co-editor. Including a comprehensive adoption of digital media; live streaming on Twitch, live-in person reporting, investing heavily in podcasting projects, exploration of new digital technologies like Twitter Spaces, and a general renewal of how we employ social media.
I also believe that social media will be essential to increasing the accessibility of news and Arthur content outside of traditional print publication.
This would look like building tight-knit, professional connections between Arthur staff members individually, and the organizations and social causes that motivate them as journalists. I would immediately put forward the idea for a dedicated, democratically designed, and curated spread in each edition of the Arthur that highlights local community activism and gives activists the opportunity to be journalists and work with journalists. This would have the dual effect of focusing Arthur staff to always maintain healthy relationships with our activist community, but also build those relationships reciprocally to cultivate fresh journalistic talent in the future. This would see Arthur journalists as both activists and organizers themselves, but also journalists simultaneously.
Arthur sits at a compelling precipice with so much in front of us. I have worked very closely with the current editors, who have entirely shaped my worldview in running for this position. In many ways, I intend to continue their work and innovate where I know how to.
Now we have introduced ourselves and our ideas, we want to talk about what we think we will bring to Arthur as a team. We are excited to work together as we have complementary skills and interests that when put together will be able to push Arthur to even bigger places. Where Cameron is a tech-savvy, new-age journalist; Bethan is an experienced print-editor with particular interest in how we can make traditional journalism accessible and exciting. Together we will be looking at all aspects of journalism and news-reporting and using all of this to boost Arthur’s profile on campus and using our platform for the betterment of student life. Furthermore, as we have worked in different areas of Arthur over the past year, we have a wealth of experience and connections that we can draw on as co-editors.
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