What is Honi Soit?
Founded in 1929 by a group of students wanting to push back against the Australian media’s critical portrayal of Sydney University students, Honi Soit has been a radical left-wing voice on campus ever since.
From our fierce opposition to the Vietnam war, which got an editor barred from the United States and almost caused the paper to lose funding, to our enduring campaigns for Indigenous and Queer justice, the paper has always been on the vanguard of countercultural movements in Australia.
Honi has become a record of Sydney University life. Our archives are a time capsule into not only the views of students on the defining issues of every decade, but also how those students saw themselves.
By contributing to Honi, you are adding your voice to thousands of other student across almost 100 years of journalism and activism.
What do we write about?
As the only weekly student newspaper in the nation, Honi’s focus is to cover any issue important to the experience of students while simultaneously creating a space for their own experiences and observations.
Beyond student and campus news, in these pages you will find long form investigative pieces, political analysis, culture pieces, theatre reviews, comedy, and much more.
Just last year, Honi included features on the right to protest and privacy, the NETU’s historic strike and the intensifying housing crisis, as well as deep dives into the pervasive sexual assault epidemic on campus.
The direction of this year’s paper depends largely on the ideas and problems you, the student body, bring to our attention.
Pitching and Writing:
Every Honi Soit edition starts with a pitch callout. First, every week we publish a list of prompts in the Honi Reporters Facebook Group (and now the Instagram Close Friends). Don’t worry, we want ANY of your ideas – the prompts are just a little help to get the creative juices flowing. Even if your pitch doesn’t fit the weekly theme, pitch it anyway!
You, intrepid reporter, must submit a pitch by Saturday. There is a basic formula for pitches: we want to know your idea, why it’s important, why students want or need to read it, and why you’re the person to write it. We also want to know how long you want the article to be, and whether or not you want art for it.
The editors then have a pitch meeting, where we decide as a group which pitches can become articles. Don’t worry, we will provide feedback on rejected pitches, and are happy to workshop them into successful ones!
Successful reporters will then need to write a first draft by the deadline discussed with your editor. It’s essential you follow deadlines to the letter, or at least communicate with your editor if you think you won’t make it. Your assigned editor will then give it the once over, to which you may need to respond to comments and changes. Feel free to dispute changes: this is a collaborative process, and we are often wrong (we’re students too after all).
Next, the piece will be sub-edited twice: this means other editors make sure we didn’t miss any typos, glaring errors, or catastrophic oversights. Finally, you’ll get a chance to have one last look at your piece and make sure it’s how you want it.
Then we lay up the edition, make sure your piece looks nice, and send it off for approval to print.
As always, the best bit is saved till last: your article makes it to the stands around the University. Your name is in ink on paper, one of the best feelings in the world.
News 101:
Newswriting is different and challenging, but once you get the hang of a simple formula, it’s the easiest and quickest way to get a byline (no, this is not a scam ad). This year, we want more students to have a crack at newswriting – so we’ve put together a very short basic guide to what isn’t a very arcane craft.
The most important part of news writing is structure: the vast majority of news articles everywhere follow the inverted pyramid format. The most important information is at the top of the article. Everything else is written in descending importance. This can be tricky, as our instinct is towards more narrative-based writing: I like to think of it like a puzzle, and the sentences as pieces. Sorting the pieces can take time, and sometimes you have to move things around to make the picture.
An article will start with a lead. This is the first sentence of the article, and should include the “who, what, when, where” and maybe “how.” Your reader should be able to stop at the lead and understand the basic gist of the story.
Newswriting has to be as impartial as possible: in news writing, we are covering facts, not opinions. We are a radical, left-wing newspaper, but in news that only affects how we select what is important to cover. Thus, we can’t make any claims: we have to let our quotes and attributions talk for us. Avoid editorialising and value judgements in news articles, and try to select quotes that tell the story.
Sources are important. We have to be sure what we are writing is accurate and verifiable. Often we can use resources like press releases, but it is important to remain critical and find other sources to accompany these. Interviews are thus important; these can be daunting, but don’t worry: we can help!
Finally, some formatting and style rules. News articles are usually in past tense, with short, sharp paragraphs (usually only one sentence per paragraph, no more than two!). Confusingly, headlines are usually in the present tense.
Have a look at the news articles in this edition of Honi for some examples of what this looks like in practice. If you have any more questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us, your editors.
We hope to get as many people writing news as possible in 2024!
