Why you should cherish your student newspaper
Over the past several years, the news industry has undergone many changes. With social media and the fast-paced information in the palms of our hands and in front of us at all times, it’s difficult to see any alternatives over the screen.
As we are all well aware, this media content and fast-paced information that we consume is thoroughly over-saturated, making it difficult to process and slow down with everything you’re sifting through when you open your phone. Whether it’s news content, social media pages, brand advertisements, or simply entertainment content, it’s all among billions of pieces of information that come at us so fast we don’t even register most of it.
One particular alternative is incredibly accessible to the students at the University of Regina; the newspapers that you see on the stands around campus give you a chance to engage with information in a way that social media can’t replicate.
First of all, you’re holding paper rather than looking at a screen – something is entirely different there, in the physical sense.
The intention behind the consumption is also different; you have to walk to the stand and pick up your copy, to unfold and turn each page. With this, you can slow down and take in the information which has been carefully curated for you. The words are right there, in ink, just for you!
These newspapers don’t just appear, though. Each issue of your student newspaper has a whole team of staff behind it who work hard to create and publish stories pertaining to the student world and important issues surrounding us.
They are constantly keeping an eye and ear out for ideas, conducting research and interviews, and writing and editing the stories that fill the pages of the Carillon. This is a team that is passionate about what they do and know the importance of keeping newspapers and newsrooms alive. What a wonderful reason to support your student newspaper!
By participating in readership, you are engaging with this team and their process and becoming a part of a conversation and the communications circuit, whether it is led by others or meant to be carried forth by you as the reader. You uplift a community of writers and readers who care not only for this medium but for the freedom of quality information to reach you.
Of course, Regina has other newspapers, like the Leader Post, but there is something extra special in having a student newspaper. It is by students, for students, documenting the university world in a manner meant to be understood by this widely diverse group of peers. The newspaper gives a unique voice to students for holding authority accountable and understanding important world issues through the lens of a generation.
Not only do student newspapers carry news in a way that fast-paced media can’t quite capture, but they are also constantly documenting the history of student body activity. In having spent quite a bit of time in the Carillon’s archives, I’ve been able to watch, through ink and paper, how our university and student body have changed over the decades since our founding.
I’ve been entertained by reporting on events I would never have thought would happen, and I’ve seen how students’ lives have been immortalized in these pages among stories of the changing world. There are things found in these archives that nobody would be able to tell you about today were it not for the medium, times people may have forgotten about.
This medium, of course, is an art form. The printing press, many years ago, revolutionized the way we think and communicate in society. Literacy rates skyrocketed, literature became accessible to everyone, and democracy obtained a new strength.
Though technology has since advanced, the business of creating and sharing newspapers is a way to honour this revolution and the people that made it happen. In this sense, alongside printmakers of every kind, we keep an art alive within the print news cycle.
Having worked on my local newspaper for two years, the one that I have read my whole life with my family and friends, I saw the way in which the news staff there, too, were dedicated to showing up for the community and documenting special events: town traditions, charity events, celebrations of local accomplishments, birthday wishes, obituaries, and much more over many years. The town’s history is folded up neatly in these pages.
As children, my friends and I would look for our pictures in the newspaper after any big event we’d been a part of: school green day clean-ups, Christmas concerts, school theatre productions, band concerts, and sporting events. Now these accomplishments are documented in the online archives; a Google search of any of our names would almost certainly take you to an issue of the newspaper from around 2010 and onwards.
While the Carillon works a little bit differently, I know I look forward to picking up each new issue at the stand on the Thursday that it’s published, and sitting down with it to find out what I can learn about my community and my fellow students that week, to see who has written and if any of my friends are featured, and to admire each new cover and graphics and cutlines. In fact, it’s one of the reasons I chose to come to school here.
Access to a student newspaper is a privilege and great amenity offered to you as a student at the University of Regina. Read it! Talk to your friends about it! Laugh together! Talk local politics and music together. Get out and to the stands. Get your copy of the newest issue now (or every issue you can find). Contribute! Also, let the Carillon know what we can do to make this newspaper more for the students!
