MMU Student Press Office Editor-in-Chief, Neil Harrison with staff of UBC Student Newspaper, The Ubyssey
By Neil Harrison
From one Student Press Office to another. Whilst at the University of British Columbia, I couldn’t resist paying a visit to the office of UBC’s fantastic student newspaper, The Ubyssey.
Hanging out in the basement of the Student Union Building – in possibly one of the coolest offices I’ve ever been in – I spoke with a number of the paper’s editorial staff, including Culture Editor, Jenica Montgomery, Copy Editor, Ciaran Dougherty, Staff Reprter Bill Situ and Illustrator, Julian Yu.
They explained that working for The Ubyssey offers students a great chance to pick up skills and develop confidence alongside their studies in a real media environment. Although founded in 1918, Jenica and Bill told me that The Ubyssey has been operating autonomously for the past 20 years and now publishes 10,000 print copies every Wednesday and Sunday, as well as constantly updating their superb website.
Of course, The Ubyssey has quite a few years’ experience over Humanity Hallows, but needless to say, thanks to the friendly welcome of the staff here I managed to pick up a few tips and a ton of inspiration.
From the press office it was a short hop over to the campus-based CiTR radio station. We were interviewed by CiTR Arts Reporter, Rohit Joseph, about ‘Forever Young’, the MMU-commissioned film that we screened here at UBC earlier in the week. The interview is set to be featured on Friday’s 5pm (Vancouver time) news as well as the station’s arts programme.
Tomorrow – sadly our final day here in Vancouver – we’ll be finding out about a fascinating community outreach program run by UBC so keep checking back for more details. For now, however, it’s farewell to the UBC campus. We’d like to say a huge thank you to everyone who has made us feel extremely welcome during our time here. Special mentions for Lisa Loutzenheiser, Lori Macintosh (make up that guest bedroom!), Joy Dixon and, of course, everyone at The Ubyssey and CiTR.
Neil Harrison is Editor-in-Chief at Humanity Hallows. He is in his third year studying History at MMU. Follow Neil on Twitter @looseriver
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