In the lead up to the 2024 Student Journalism Conference, and through the variety of publication profiles Honi has published this year, avid readers may have developed a greater awareness of the wide array of student media outlets across Australia. Every university seems to have at least one intrepid group of student journalists defending the bastion of the fourth estate in an increasingly restricted media environment.
What Australian Honi readers may be less aware of is the equally vibrant ecosystem of student media publications across the Tasman Sea in Aotearoa New Zealand. Just like in Australia, Kiwi student journalists have been holding power to account, causing controversies, and being general rabble-rousers for decades.
With such a complex stujo ecosystem, it is hard to know where to begin. But where else to start than the Land of the Long White Cloud’s oldest weekly student magazine: Critic Te Ārohi. The Critic — student publication at Ōtepoti Dunedin’s Otago University, in the frigid deep south of the country — has been printing weekly magazines since 1925. That’s four years older than our own esteemed publication. Much like Honi Soit, the magazine is associated with the Otago University Students’ Association. The magazine reportedly has a circulation of 5,000, with an alleged 99% pickup rate — possibly linked to Dunedin’s intense student culture.
“Students make up a lot of the population of Dunedin,” Lucy Currier, a Dunedinite now living in Sydney said, “most students come down here for the ‘Otago Uni experience’ as it has come to be known for extreme parties and general havoc.”
“It’s always just been a thing since I’ve been alive,” Currier continued, “the messy street parties, couch burning, flat initiations… it definitely doesn’t have the best reputation with everyone else living in Dunedin.”
Currier noted that Critic’s track record in “bringing to light the negative sides of that student culture, such as the flat (sharehouses in Ōtepoti Dunedin parlance) initiations last year [referring to allegations of extreme hazing rituals].” Currier said that exposing these events “in the hope of stopping them is a good thing, especially when they seem to be getting worse each year.”
The Critic has a history of local breakthrough investigative journalism ranging from misogyny at residential colleges to infiltrating white supremacist groups. This has contributed to the Critic repeatedly sweeping the floor of the Aotearoa Student Press Association’s (ASPA) annual awards.
Additionally, the paper has been lauded for its visual design, with a history of full-page-art covers and pull-out spreads that have adorned student flat walls in Ōtepoti Dunedin since time immemorial. Currier told me that she and her flatmates would decorate their sharehouse with this art. “We needed cheap decoration, but also all the art in the Critic was done by students,” Currier said.
“They were always creative and cool and well thought out, and it was fun to display them,” Currier continued, “each week we’d go through and there was usually a two-page-spread dedicated to an art piece a student had done for the theme that week. It was just cool art!”
Much like Honi, sometimes this art has led to controversy. In 2018 the Critic published The Menstruation Edition. The cover consisted of a stylised image of a naked person menstruating, which drew the ire of then University Proctor Dave Scott. Scott, controversial for many reasons, including allegedly entering a student flat without permission to confiscate a bong, decided that all copies of the magazine should be confiscated. Following national media coverage and an open letter written by former Critic Te Ārohi editors, the University of Otago walked back on the confiscation and issued an apology.
Further north is another paper with its own fair share of critical journalism and controversy. Salient (not to be confused with Salience, the publication of USyd’s media department) is the student publication at the Victoria University of Wellington (VUW). Salient is structured more rigidly than Honi’s rather anarchic team of 10 equal-role editors, with a chief editor, dedicated news editors, and a dedicated designer.
Typically, much like Honi, the magazine takes a leftist stance. At one point, however, “leftist stance” meant Maoism, as editors through the 1970s were aligned with the Wellington Marxist-Leninist Organisation — an avowedly Maoist group at the time. According to Salient contributor Max Nichol, fighting between left-wing student groups at VUW played out in the paper, with the Maoist editors barring Trotskyite Young Socialist members from writing to the point that they founded their own alternative student paper, Censored Salient, in 1977.
This was not the only controversy in Salient’s history however. When I interviewed Kiwi comedian Guy Williams earlier this year, it was the Lundy 500 controversy that stuck in his memory. Two pieces of Kiwi context are required for understanding this anecdote. The first is the Undy 500, a tradition whereby Otago University students would buy and decorate a car for under $500 and then drive it from Ōtautahi Christchurch to Ōtepoti Dunedin before destroying it.
The second is the Lundy murder case, in which Mark Lundy was convicted of the 2000 murder of his wife and daughter in a controversial, high profile case that hinged on a police allegation that Lundy had driven between Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington and Te Papaioea Palmerston North — 300km — in 68 minutes. Whilst Lundy was later found guilty on other evidence, NZ Police’s attempt to allege that the convicted murderer had made this drive in astonishing time was met with ridicule.
Guy Williams’ recalls when his friend, then editor of Salient, jumped on the band-wagon. “To make fun of that on the day after he lost his appeal and went back to jail… to show how disgusting the police case against him was, they invented what they [the editors] called the Lundy 500.”
“The concept was that all the students get together and try and drive the drive that Lundy was alleged to [have] do[ne] by the police in the time he did it,” Williams said, “so it’s like a car race.”
“It’s so perfect,” Williams said, “his name is Lundy, it’s called the Undy 500… and obviously it was a joke.” According to Williams, “it got a huge backlash,” a backlash that the comedian called “totally undeserved.” In Williams’ view, no one was seriously going to attempt the race; if they did they would be “pulled over and arrested” for speeding. Williams also claimed that the editors weren’t saying Lundy was innocent — in fact they knew he was guilty — but instead were trying to make fun of the police case.
Regardless, the controversy was at least a joke in poor taste, and whilst I don’t share Williams’ opinion that the backlash was undeserved, the stunt certainly illustrates the irreverent tone that dominates Salient. And the fact that it’s still stuck in Guy Williams’ head after all these years is a testament to the impact of student journalism, for good or ill.
Another Kiwi student media outlet is Auckland University’s Craccum. Founded in 1927, this is another weekly magazine older than our own Honi Soit, with an alleged circulation of 10,000 papers. Craccum is not as wreathed in laurels as the Critic, nor does it have Salient’s history of Maoism. It has, however, unlike any other Kiwi student publications, produced a premier of South Australia — Mike Rann —who edited the paper in 1975, and went on to lead South Australia under the Labor party from 2002 to 2011. If that’s not a claim to fame, I’m not sure what is.
Breaking stories, sparking controversy, and producing politicians, however, are not unique to Aotearoa New Zealand’s student publications: university newspapers across Australia can claim similar (in)famy. What is different about Aotearoa New Zealand, however, is a functional nation-wide student journalism body.
The Aotearoa Student Press Association (ASPA) includes Critic Te Ārohi, Salient, and Craccum, along with five other student publications. The association holds an annual awards ceremony which crowns the “best publication” — an honour won by Critic Te Ārohi 12 times since 2002 — amongst other prizes.
Significantly, ASPA previously held a parliament press access card for participating student publications. This allowed Kiwi student journalists from member-papers to attend Aotearoa New Zealand’s national parliament for press conferences and other media events.
However, as reported in The New Zealand Herald earlier this year, the ASPA’s press card was revoked by the new National Party government. According to the Herald, Parliamentary Speaker Gerry Brownlee attributed the cancellation to “security”, claiming that students did not attend the Beehive regularly enough to necessitate swipe card access.
This was disputed by the editor of Salient, Phoebe Robertson, who told the Herald that “the whole point of democracy is that people can have access… and ask politicians questions that other people aren’t asking.” This is an important role in a country that has lurched to the right following New Zealand Labour’s landslide 2023 defeat to a National-ACT-NZ First coalition that has already begun attacking Māori rights, environmental regulations, and government institutions.
Regardless, the clout garnered by eight student publications coming together under the auspices of ASPA was essential in getting access to parliament in the first place. This is something that Australian student journalists would do well to pay attention to. What could we achieve by coming together as one? The 2024 Student Journalism Conference being held at USyd this weekend is a good start, but such a question could only be answered through a functioning Australian Student Publications Association. Furthermore, given the myriad similarities between student publications on both sides of the Tasman, what great things could international collaboration in this arena achieve? Well, in the realm of student media, anything is possible.
