“May you live in interesting times,” says the Bard. I’m referring, of course, to Terry Pratchett. This year has been filled with interesting times for The Varsity, both in its pages and in my tenure as Editor-in-Chief. One hundred and thirty-two years of history is a lot to live up to, but I hope that volume CXXXIII has met that challenge.
Money, money, money
The Varsity has faced a tough financial and advertising climate over the last few years, and we’ve adapted to reflect that reality — we’re now one of the few entirely student-run university newspapers in the country.
The referendum to raise our student levy was a key means of ensuring The Varsity’s financial future. I am incredibly grateful for the help and support I received from the board of directors, who oversaw the referendum, and to the paper’s masthead and staff, who put so much time and energy into marketing and campaigning. In particular, Ethan Chiel and Nathan Watson put countless hours into working on the referendum video and talking to students at our tables around campus. The successful passage of the levy increase (if the University Affairs Board of Governing Council approves it later this month) will come as a consequence of the work put in by the paper’s dedicated masthead and staff, and I’m proud to have worked with them on it.
The levy increase will, we hope, allow us to continue to expand our coverage and capabilities. It will also go some way to protecting us against the fluctuations of the advertising market, which took a major hit in 2009–2010 and has continued to waver since. The loss of the agency that sold national advertising on our behalf, which is due to shut down at the end of the summer, will hit us hard — but the impact has been mitigated by a successful levy campaign and the efforts of our in-house advertising team. I have every confidence that they will be able to make up any shortfall we may face.
Ultimately, the money you pay to The Varsity every year goes into the print product, our online presence, and yes, to the salaries of the masthead that works every week to ensure that important stories at this university are covered.
In the brouhaha surrounding ‘defederation,’ the university’s talking heads have often asked, ‘What do our fees pay for? What do students actually get from student fees?” With The Varsity, the answer is news, entertainment, diversion, information, a voice. Campus media is sustained by the students that produce it, and more importantly, by the students that consume it. I believe there will always be an audience for a student publication that speaks for and to students on this campus. That’s what your yearly $3.72 is paying for.
Print or online? Both
Editors-in-chief have often in this forum addressed the importance of the Internet and web-specific content for The Varsity. We’ve continued to grow our web presence, following a revamp of our website last year — for which I owe many thanks to last year’s online team and the website developer, kmsm.
The online team this year has emphasized connecting with students over social media, and our editors have delivered a mix of breaking news, online-specific content, and stunning videos that have increased our online footprint significantly. Certain stories just make more sense on our website. Our coverage of NXNE early in the year and the success of the timelapse video for the Night magazine are just two examples of editors understanding the power and popularity of timely, online-appropriate content.
The media landscape is changing. Every year, it seems, more and more student publications reduce or abandon their print publications in favour of online exclusivity. We understand the importance of the Internet, I assure you, and as we promised in our levy campaign we intend to continue to invest in and improve our website and online content.
But print is not dead, and certainly not on university campuses. Reading a copy of The Varsity that you picked up in a building lobby on your way to class is still a popular way of connecting with our content. At the time of our levy campaign, we heard from students who believed students would be better served by an email newsletter. As we outlined during the campaign, print at The Varsity pays for itself and more. But it also serves a more important function — it lets us showcase the work of our talented designers in a way that the website cannot.
So while we’re committed to growing our audience online, we’re also committed to the convenience that print provides to many students, and to the opportunity it provides students to get involved with the paper. You can have great content online and print it too.
Stories that Matter
This year we’ve tried to live up to our self-styled role as the student voice on campus. Beyond our coverage of campus politics, defederation, and administrative changes, we’ve endeavoured to steer the conversation at U of T, instead of just reporting it. The hundreds of students who have contributed to the paper this year span the multitude of faculties, colleges, ethnicities, genders, and backgrounds that make up our three diverse campuses, and are uniquely placed to reflect and consider the challenges and issues that face students at this university.
We haven’t always gotten it right, and that’s part of the learning process for every masthead. There have been articles that cause offense, and ones that failed to live up to the high standard of accuracy and ethics that we seek to hold ourselves to.
I’ve been particularly grateful to students willing to confront difficult realities or situations in our pages, for the betterment of their fellow students. Whether they’re dealing with anxieties (“Why I can’t come to class,” January 7, 2013) or stigma because of their sexuality (“Speaking out against small acts of homophobia,” March 4, 2013), these students have raised important issues that many U of T students deal with, but too often cannot express. These students’ perspectives are just as important as those of our student politicians, and it sometimes feels like the discourse on campus drowns out such voices.
Simon Bredin and the news team have consistently reported stories as they happened, covering the defederation and election campaigns from start to finish and breaking news of important campus events (like the appointment of our new university president, “Gertler appointed U of T president,” March 11, 2013). They’ve shown that campus media can cover issues of importance in the same timeframe and with the same thoroughness that readers expect from ‘traditional’ media.
Finis
My intent is not to be self-congratulatory, though I am proud of our work this year. I’m trying to point out, instead, the role that The Varsity aspires to at this university — as a participant in, and a driver of, important changes and advances, and as a close chronicler and scrutinizer of the institutions (student-run or otherwise) that govern the academic and social lives of students.
We have a duty to the students at the University of Toronto. If you hear about The Varsity during your time at this university, the choice to engage with us is up to you. But if you make it through your time here without ever knowing this paper exists (and paying our fees the whole while), we’ve failed in our responsibility to engage with you — our audience and fellow students. I have every confidence that next year, led by newly elected Editor-in-Chief Joshua Oliver, and in the years to come, The Varsity’s dedicated staff of students will work to make sure they fulfill that duty.
I owe a debt of gratitude to every writer, photographer, illustrator, designer, and copy-editor who has worked on the publication this year. And I cannot end without giving credit to the people who make this paper run — the masthead. Your dedication and creativity made me want to come in for every minute of production, and carried me through every meeting and catastrophe. Thank you.
