This year, Arthur has accomplished a lot in terms of content, organization, and consistency.
We expanded distribution on campus and downtown, to Fleming College, and outside the downtown core at local gathering and waiting points. Next year we’d like to further expand distribution and include the Oshawa campus.
Arthur made a significant transition this year online. We unveiled a new interactive website, in which articles are uploaded every Monday, and Sara made Arthur an online presence through her use of social media. Articles are tweeted, posted on Arthur’s Facebook page, posted on various Trent and Peterborough Facebook groups, and sometimes shared on Reddit. Arthur is also on Tumblr with its new Street Style column. We even got nominated for a PeterTweeter award for best local news!
Moving forward, Sara and Pat will ensure this momentum continues by keeping the website and social media running throughout the summer, advertising the website on campus, and hosting social media contests to encourage online participation with the newspaper.
Arthur put in a strong effort to include consistency in its coverage this year. Nearly every week we ensured there were articles covering local, national, international, and campus news, as well as sports, arts, and to a lesser extent, science. Sara has ensured that the paper has also followed a consistent format so that readers could turn to certain part of the newspaper and expect a certain kind of content in that space. Sara and Pat will ensure that this consistency is continued in the next volume.
In order to be an effective news source, Arthur must stay in touch with the student body and Peterborough community. If elected, we will ensure this is the case by hiring a diversity of writers, including a new local news reporter position and maintaining the campus, science, and sports reporter positions. These positions will supplement the regular coverage in the paper that we have all seen this year.
Arthur must be open to new and creative ideas to remain fresh and relevant. This year, we created an internship program and had our first intern, Alice Froude. Next year, we are looking to develop this internship to include the possibility of earning half a credit towards one’s undergraduate degree. We have also met with several professors about partnering with the journalism program and including Arthur in the Cultural Studies media course curriculums.
Furthermore, in an effort to increase our online presence and to develop ourselves as a news organization, we will create a multimedia position that will produce video content for the website. This content will be dynamic, timely, and not necessarily dependent on the physical newspaper. It creates new opportunities for Arthur’s journalism and expands the scope of stories we can cover. It will also reach a demographic of the Trent and Peterborough population that does not identify as “readers.” Furthermore, we plan to have an Arthur radio show on Trent Radio, wherein we will discuss news and host interviews.
It’s hard to be diverse when everyone’s saying the same thing. We want Arthur to be diverse and thus inclusive of everyone’s views and interests. For example, not everyone will want to read about what Harper did this time, and not everyone will want to read about which band is coming to town. Neither interest is more relevant or important than the other, so we will ensure that both are well represented so the paper is not exclusive. Arthur may be a leftist newspaper, but it’s important that we’re a balanced leftist newspaper, and that we do not suppress the views of others with whom we disagree. We want Arthur to be a conversation.
Pat Reddick
I am graduating this June as an English major. At Arthur I have worked as a writer and as a proofreader. In both situations I have had the privilege of working hands-on with the editors using our production software. I’ve sat on the board of directors since last year’s election until very recently. I have been very involved in student groups at Trent, both as President of the Trent English Student Society and as a programmer at Trent Radio. I intend to use the skills that I have acquired through these avenues to help maintain the vision Sara has started to pursue for this paper, and also to strengthen it.
Sara Ostrowska
I have been a co-editor-in-chief of Arthur for Volume 47, a fellow student, and downtown resident. I’m on campus every day, which allows me to stay in touch with student interests. I’m also a part of the downtown community and have networked within it. As a leader, I have created a productive and creative team environment that has fostered growth throughout the year. I know the job. I have not only survived the great amount stress that it requires, I have conquered it. I believe my experience is an asset to Arthur.
