Canada’s only daily student newspaper – The Gazette – is soon to be a daily no more. Come September, after 24 years of Tuesday-Friday daily print publication, the 109-year-old publication will shift to printing two issues each week.
But this doesn’t mean The Gazette will no longer be a ‘daily’ in the true sense of the word, said Iain Boekhoff, the paper’s editor-in-chief. The news will meet readers where they already go – online.
“We’re looking to adopt a ‘digital-first’ philosophy, and put more breaking news online, and use the print edition as a ‘best of,’” he said. “It’s not a reduction to the amount of work – work will have actually increased and the amount we give to readers will increase.”
The two print issues – on days yet to be decided – will feature in-depth stories and analysis while online will focus on breaking news and a wider variety of content.
This change comes with changing times, Boekhoff explained, noting an increased presence online will better serve readers, as well as The Gazette staff and volunteers.
“From a reader standpoint, you might look at this as a reduction in print, so getting half the value. But I would come back and say we want to give you more – we want to be seven days a week rather than four. Right now, production is hindering us. It’s a big task to put out the paper,” he said.
The Gazette wants to bring its readers more news, in more formats, involving more people, resulting in better quality and better service to the community. For one particular story, Boekhoff said, the paper could send someone to live Tweet, someone else to report and another volunteer to shoot video. They can focus their day on producing quality content while still getting more stories out, faster.
“The Gazette’s first priority, as it was when I was editor-in-chief in 1988-89, is to its readers,” said Scott Colby, who today works as Beats and Features Editor in the City Department at The Toronto Star and sits on The Gazette’s advisory board. “Publishing a print product four days a week is not servicing a 21st century community of students, and faculty and staff for that matter, who live on their smart phones, tablets and laptops.
“This is an overdue and necessary move for The Gazette and I applaud Iain for showing the vision and leadership to take (the paper) in a direction that will improve the quality of the student experience at Western. I wish we had these storytelling tools when I worked at The Gazette in the late 1980s. We were thrilled by the first Mac Plus computers in 1987 and a fax machine in 1988.”
No one is forcing this decision upon the paper, Boekhoff stressed. In order to sustain the legacy of The Gazette, its editorial board decided to pursue the shift as a means of better serving readers, staff and volunteers alike.
“This is something we want to do to better serve the Western community and our volunteers,” Boekhoff noted. “We rely almost solely on volunteers and we want to ensure we’re giving them a relevant experience, to make it worth their while to come here and for members of the Western community to read us.
“We’re not trying to get away from print – it’s very much a part of our culture – but the modern journalism landscape is not just print, and we want to adapt to that.”
To better serve its staff and volunteers, the paper will roll out a comprehensive training program, bringing in individuals to train the team in everything from journalism basics to photography, design and social media skills.
For future graduates of The Gazette’s newsroom, this means better preparedness for jobs in modern newsrooms. Everyone who has come out of The Gazette, and landed a job in journalism, has had the word ‘digital’ in their title, Boekhoff added. What The Gazette is doing come September is meant to be in sync with what is happening in newsrooms everywhere.
“I think it’s a great step for the paper; it’s wonderful,” said Paul Benedetti, who sits on The Gazette’s publishing committee and teaches Journalism at Western.
The committee agreed the paper was under a financial and personnel strain in printing four issues a week, Benedetti said.
“It wasn’t the future The Gazette had to catch up with – it was the present,” he said.
The Gazette traces its roots to 1906 as a hand-written literature newspaper, In Cap And Gown, and adopted its current name in 1930. The publication moved from weekly to twice a week in 1948, and then to its current four-times-a-week schedule in 1991.