The end of September has snuck up on many of us as we ease into a new academic year. At the Argosy, we’ve been settling into our new roles, too. We’re happy to be back in our dusty old office to bring you the first fall issue of the Argosy’s 148th volume.
If you’ve been on campus before, you’ll notice that some things about the paper have changed. After careful deliberation and consultation with students and faculty, we’ve decided to shift to a bi-weekly printing schedule. This has allowed us to print more copies of a longer, full-colour paper, continuing our efforts to put resources not only into our written content, but also the photos and illustrations that accompany it.
This shift also allows our writers the option of taking more time with some of their pieces. With this time, staff can pursue longer-form work that is more challenging and more creative.
We also imagine an Argosy with less burnout and lower turnover. A portion of the funds we’ve saved from our publishing change have gone towards compensating our staff more fairly for the work that they do. We’ve also put resources into developing our online presence, as we will continue to publish during the weeks in which a paper isn’t printed.
We take the importance of upholding objectivity seriously. We invite you to understand objectivity not as a cold, disinterested, singular view, but rather as an intention to better represent the complexity of the world we engage with. To strive for objectivity is to strive for fairness and balance. We can strengthen our efforts in this pursuit by listening to and looking at stories in new ways and from different perspectives, while recognizing how our own points of view can be limited, even in a small town like Sackville.
It’s exciting to see that our staff this year is predominantly female. Journalism, like a number of other disciplines and fields, remains a male-dominated space in many ways. We’re excited to work with an ambitious, creative and kind group of individuals – and we hope you come work with us, too, at some point this year!
As always, we encourage the campus community to contribute to the paper in illustration, photography, writing, videography and other ways. We hope you will engage with us at funder’s meetings, on our website and social media, and in good, old-fashioned print. Happy reading!