STUDENT MEDIA IS IMPORTANT
As a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, trust in news media declined below 50 per cent. Media intentionally sought out by people dropped by 50-60 per cent. The media’s role in the pandemic was important, people were scared and hoping for reliable information on what the fuck was going on around them. Meanwhile in the background, student media publications all over New Zealand were focussing on the truly important issues facing our tertiary population. Just as one example - I wrote a pretty controversial piece entitled ‘What your coffee order says about you’. This hard-hitting piece in Issue 3 of 2021 was happening in the midst of the Government's elimination strategy.
Obviously, I know this piece I wrote calling out mocha drinkers was not a deeply important issue to cover. However, it does paint a telling picture of the role student publications play within the huge media landscape. We all have our news section which is very important in covering how nationwide issues impact students directly. There are nearly 400,000 tertiary students across the country, which is a huge demographic to be left out of mainstream media coverage. We’re not held back by editorial pressure or political coverage, most of us are pitching to our peers, who care about the same things we do.
Massive has gone through its own special journey, we went from individual campus publications monthly, to a weekly issue going to all campuses. Last year, the Massey Students’ Associations merged together to create MUSAF, the Massey University Students’ Associations Federation. With this merger, the fate of Massive was called into question. MUSAF sent out a survey asking people what they thought Massive would look like, whether it would be controlled by the students’ associations, whether it would be an online-only magazine, and how often it would be released. There was a bit of pushback on this, and it was even mentioned at the Aotearoa Student Press Awards. People were genuinely concerned that Massive would no longer exist, and we would become one of the only universities without their own student media. Luckily, a solution was reached and Massive became what it is now, a beautiful amalgamation of creatives working together under our tyrannical leader - Mason Tangatatai.
Student media essentially gives the creators freedom to write about what they think is important, not only to themselves but to other students. Student media should not be controlled by the University, it should be by students and for students. As much as student media has been able to produce pieces that people can sneakily read during their morning lectures, it has also been able to produce genuine investigative content. Elliot Weir from Critic released Facism 2.0 - a six month long investigative piece from inside New Zealand's white supremacist groups. This piece was crazy and intense, but it was also deeply informative. Part of what made this piece possible was the freedom that student media allows for its creators. Elliot was able to use his time on this article to expose deeply disturbing parts of New Zealand’s society that impacts not only students, but the whole of New Zealand. It was a perfect example of what student media allows us to accomplish.
My next point about student media is slightly more personal, writing student pieces has been extremely therapeutic for me. I have a journalism degree from Massey, which taught me really important technical skills on how to produce high quality, newsworthy pieces. The thing about writing for mainstream media though, is that it can be very rigid. You have to operate within a specific set of rules, to protect yourself and the publication you’re writing for. Most media you see in newspapers or news sites, is written with the knowledge that people will only read the first few lines to get the important information. This means, what matters to you will not necessarily be what matters to everyone else. Writing for Massive means that I can explore these things that matter to me, hoping and praying that people will be interested enough to read the whole piece. We get to deep dive into issues that you wouldn’t see just scrolling the home page of Stuff. Being able to explore these ideas with total freedom is exciting and deeply cathartic.
So, what does the future of student media look like in an ideal world? My hope for student media is that it can continue to operate as an independent body that is able to call universities out on their shit - God forbid they need to. It should also be a space that continues to provide free accessible content for students who want to be informed. It needs to stay a place where creators can explore themselves and the interests of their peers, without worrying about editorial pressure or political trends. It would be amazing if student media continues to provide awesome art to cover the walls of our terrible mouldy flats. We can continue to showcase local creators and cover issues that just aren’t talked about on your morning news doom scroll. Instead of providing something that causes mistrust, we can be a force to engage audiences and inspire other creatives.
It’s also important to shout out other student media publications. Craccum, Salient, Debate, Canta, Nexus, Te Pararē and Critic are all excellent publications repping students up and down the country. If you’re keen for a gander at some of their pieces, you can find most of them online. While you’re at it, I’d encourage you to check out my all-important coffee drinking piece from last year, it might change your life.