This piece was written for and printed in Volume 55’s Issue Zero. Click here to read in full.
Before we tell you anything more, we’ve gotta get one thing straight: Arthur belongs to you. This newspaper is yours. Yes, you! We know you just got here, but you are the proud new (collective) owner of a small, strange independent paper.
Arthur Newspaper is owned by the students of Trent University. Every year each full-time undergraduate student at Trent pays a $10.82 levy fee that keeps us in the business of telling stories, amplifying student voices, and speaking truth to power. For that, we thank you.
For 54 years, Arthur has been publishing a weekly newspaper (also available online at trentarthur.ca) that connects students to their community. With over half a century of publishing under our belts, Arthur has grown big in its britches; we like to think of ourselves as more than a campus paper. We see ourselves as an integral part of Peterborough’s media landscape – a bridge between the city and the university.
Arthur is special for a lot of reasons, but perhaps the most important one is that we are free from administrative and commercial controls. This means that the only entity we answer to is you – the students. You can publish almost anything in Arthur, so long as it meets our editorial standards (which can be found on our website). For this reason, Arthur is an often messy amalgamation of student issues, arts and culture, politics at every level, local events, world issues, social justice, opinion pieces, satire, memes, poetry, photography, puzzles, horoscopes, etc. We do it all!
And the newspaper isn’t even our only avenue! We also host a radio show on Trent Radio 92.7 CFFF FM which can also be found as a podcast on our website.
Arthur also offers both paid and for-credit positions to students in social media management, investigative journalism, local event coverage, photography, editing, administrative work, etc. We see Arthur as a place to learn new skills, turn interests into passions, and make progress in your professional development – all while earning some extra cash, or working towards your degree requirements. Visit our website and hit up the Get Involved tab to find out how you can get in on this.
At Arthur, we strive to incorporate our anti-oppressive mandate in all that we do. This means journalism that is responsible, ethical, and just. We won’t pretend that we have an unbiased lens: we are biased towards justice. We want our bias to be one that is anti-racist, feminist, and de-colonial. We strive to amplify underrepresented voices, to tell the stories that aren’t being told in mainstream media, and to hold people in power accountable at every turn.
A Strange Name for a Strange Paper
While you’re here, we’ll let you in on a little secret – the story behind the name. For years, folks have been mystified by a newspaper with a human name – but let the confusion fester no longer!
The year was 1966. The Beatles were bigger than Jesus Christ – John Lennon’s words, not ours. Arthur’s early editors had a bad case of beatlemania and one night after staying up too late watching A Hard Day’s Night, the name landed in their laps. You see, there’s this scene in the film where George Harrison affectionately tells a reporter that the name of his haircut – the famous Beatles bob – is “Arthur.” Long story short, Arthur is named after a haircut, not a human. All these years later, the name remains.
If you’d like to get to know Arthur better, we suggest you check out our website, trentarthur.ca, like us on Facebook, follow us on Instagram (@TrentArthurNews) and twitter (@TrentArthur). We’re still working on TikTok.