Every week, new editions of Honi Soit hit stands around campus. For many students, this is an unremarkable part of their university experience. They walk past the stands, perhaps noticing a diminishing stack, or maybe its change over the week is lost in the rush to their next class. If you are reading this article, then you have picked up an edition, or are reading this online. No matter how this article came your way, thank you for reading. You are part of what makes Honi remarkable.
Honi has been printed since 1929. As each editorial team has changed the design of this paper, this date has remained emblazoned on the front of many editions. We are not the oldest student publication. Farrago, the University of Melbourne’s magazine, enjoys that claim to fame. Honi is the oldest weekly student newspaper. No matter what happens each week, no matter how many articles get postponed, no matter how many last minute changes happen on a Sunday, there is one thing that remains consistent. A new week brings a new Honi.
There are, obviously, limitations to this. You will not receive a new edition in mid-semester break or during exams and the holidays. But for the most part, Honi is a truly weekly endeavour. From the pitch meeting two weeks before an issue hits the stands, to tweaks for DSP issues on the Monday before printing, there are many people that interact with an edition before it lands in your hands.
It starts every Tuesday afternoon, when the editors find a spot on campus to meet. Sometimes, it’s in our office, other times, it’s a room in the Education Building, a table outside Hermann’s, or a patch of grass somewhere at the request of an editor who has spent too long underground that week.
It doesn’t really start at the pitch meeting. It starts when someone comes up with an idea, and thinks to themselves that maybe this idea might matter to someone else too. They then discuss the idea with their editor, who will bring it to the pitch meeting. After hours of discussion and deliberation, reporters receive feedback and have the next week to write their pieces.
The editors will also have completed their first attempt at pagination by this point — a process that produces a rough structure for the edition and where everything will fit. Once the pieces have been submitted, the editors work with reporters over the next week as part of three rounds of edits on each piece — one primary edit and two sub-edits.
Writing and breaking news, emailing for comment, editing reviews, uploading to WordPress, making social media content, and a variety of other admin tasks occur over the week. Our Publications Managers, Mickie and Amanda, will send through an ad list and production information for the next week’s edition. More often than not, in the frazzle of pulling everything altogether, this will result in someone asking, “oh, do we have any ads this week?” on a Sunday, sending the Editor-in-Chief into a panicked scroll through our emails on Sunday and quickly repaginating to fit everything in.
Speaking of Sunday, the editors then spend the entire day in the basement of the Wentworth Building in the Langford Office. Over the years, the practicality of how this has occurred has changed drastically. For recent editorial teams, double-page spreads are made on Adobe InDesign. Throughout the day, last minute edits will be made, text put on spreads, art is created and chaos is born. Once the spreads are made, it is time to proof, searching for errors in the pages, weird spacing and a pre-flight check on a Sunday night will reveal the links we’ve forgotten, the text that is overset and the fonts that we need to make sure are in the server. But if we’ve missed something, we’ll receive a message from Mickie on Monday morning, and the search for the stray file begins.
At some point between midnight and around 3am, at least for our ticket, the editors part ways to begin the trip back to their homes. For some this is longer than others — one editor semi-frequently arrives home at 5am on a Monday. On Monday morning, the Editor-in-Chief for that edition is already back in the office ready for any issues raised during the DSP process. The SRC’s Directors of Student Publications and the President are presented with a draft edition of the paper to complete a legal check, before it is sent to the printers later in the day.
Before long, it is Tuesday again and the cycle begins again. Most Tuesday afternoons, often during our pitch meeting, Mickie delivers this week’s editions to the 27 different stands across main campus and the Conservatorium of Music. When I think about all of the steps that go into making this paper each week, it feels like a wonder that it still happens. Every single week, students write about issues that matter to them, and to other students.
Honi has always been the product of students. Honi will hit the stands this week, next week and each week until the end of the semester. Honi Soit is still in print.