What is The Medium, anyway?

It’s the second student newspaper of UTM. “Student” here means run by UTM students and not affiliated with the university administration.

Hold up. What do you mean “the second”?

Well, UTM’s first campus newspaper was The Erindalian, founded in 1969. It ran until 1973 and collapsed, but former members founded Medium II in 1974—you see, at the time the exciting new radio station CFRE was considered the primary medium on campus. In 1983, the paper officially split from the student union, and in 1986 Medium II Publications was incorporated. Finally, in 1995 the paper underwent another name change, becoming simply The Medium.

Thanks for the history lesson, egghead.

Anytime.

So what do you do? That is, why The Medium?

We think it’s important that a student body have a means of connecting, of staying informed about their community, and of discussing their concerns. Their own means—not a means in someone else’s periphery. This campus is part of U of T, but we’re doing our own thing out here, too. And that deserves professional coverage.

Cool, cool. One thing. Who’s this “we”?

You.

Pardon?

You! We are you. That is, we’re all UTM students enrolled right now or within the last year. We happen to love writing and editing, particularly the journalistic sort. And some of us like photography, others like design, and so on. Most of us started by poking around the website or paper the way you’re doing now, so if the above describes you, there’s no reason not to keep reading and consider contributing.

Hmmm… I’ll think about it. Meanwhile, I have some serious questions.

Shoot.

Running a newspaper costs money.

True. We get a lot of help from volunteers, but there are some expenses, including head staff, printing, bookkeeping, audits… The service we provide is funded partly by a student levy and partly by advertisements.

And running a company requires accountability.

Absolutely. We are limited by our constitution and overseen by a board of directors that you run for and elect. We also hold an annual general meeting that involves fancy words like “quorum”, and we warmly invite you to come ask questions and propose changes if you don’t like how things are run.

Where do you get your material? Do you source content from The Varsity or other U of T newspapers?

Nope, our content is original. There are a few publications that mention our campus from time to time, but again, UTM should have its own voice. As often as we can, we send our own reporters to events, write our own articles, edit our own videos, and take our own photos. (There are exceptions to the photos.)

Does anyone actually read your paper?

Well, yeah! We frequently get feedback from people who read the print edition. People from a surprising diversity of academic backgrounds. And it’s much easier to track our online traffic, which we get a lot of—and more every year. I know. We’re stoked.

I’m curious about what went down at Erindale Campus 40 years ago. Or I need to do research. Do you keep archives?

We provide archives of the past decade or so on our website (scroll down), but there are gaps in one or two periods. The physical record is more complete. Luckily, our management has been careful to keep copies for most of our history, and a large-scale project is currently underway to digitalize our entire print history. Stay tuned.

Neat. If I want to talk to you, can I come by your office? Um, do you even have an office?

We do, and you can drop in at any time. We’re on the second floor of the Student Centre, right above the infobooth. Room 200 if you’re a numbers person. Now, there might not be someone there at all hours of the day, but Sundays are guaranteed, and we answer email if you want to arrange a specific time.

Okay, I think that’s all for now. Thanks! By the way, let’s say I do want to get involved…?

Sure thing. Just go back to the Contribute section and click around. There’s plenty there to get you started. Or write to us. Whatever floats your boat.

Advertising sales

This happens throughout the week, but ideally ads have already been sold before the content is planned in order to define the size and available space of the issue. The design editor also needs time to turn any ads for which only text has been supplied into, well, designs.

Planning articles

The first step is generating ideas for our content. That looks different from section to section. The news editor is constantly scouring various sources to find out about university policy changes, student union executive meetings, charity events, and such, whereas the features editor is listening to the side conversations and thinking about what they mean for UTM students. Sports is attending games and arts is attending plays, and it all comes together nicely.

Editorial meeting

Every Monday, the section editors meet with the photo editor, the online editor, and the editor-in-chief to discuss their plans for the issue. Two things result from this: on the one hand, ideas are brainstormed and cuts are made, and on the other, the media needs are decided for the articles.

Writing, editing, photography

If the editors haven’t sent their article ideas to their pool of writers to offer or assign topics, they do so now. The writers get cracking. As they work, they send their drafts to their section editor, who tells them where they’re on track and where they need to change focus or add a little more. This back-and-forth is ideally wrapped up by Thursday evening, but some events happen later in the week. Meanwhile, the photo editor is sending the photographers to events to take pictures (and sometimes video). This is also when people are spontaneously writing letters to the editor.

Copy-editing and final editing

The section editors send their articles to the copy editor, who fixes mistakes of grammar, formatting, and clarity. The copy editor sends this batch on to the editor-in-chief, who gives them a final look-over, mostly for whether the final product is in a publishable state. Sometimes something just can’t be brought to where it needs to be within the timeframe we have, sometimes there’s a risk of saying something outside of our journalistic bounds, and so on.

Layout

Everyone has to be a little multitalented on a small staff. After the editor-in-chief sketches out how the paper will look in terms of picture and ad placement, the design editor sets up the page templates for the editors. But then on Sunday, when the entire editorial team is required to be in the office, the editors have to actually place and format their articles, because the work takes all of Sunday even when it’s divided over five people. (The editor-in-chief does the opinion section.) Meanwhile, the design editor prepares illustrations and infographics to accompany articles.

Final touches

The copy editor looks over the laid-out pages one last time to check the text, as well to check any new text that’s been written—headlines, subtitles, photo captions, talking head quotes, and so forth. Then the editor-in-chief, the photo editor, and the design editor check all the layout, fix whatever needs fixing, and prepare the files for the printers. A little obsessiveness doesn’t hurt at this stage.

Distribution (print and online)

Late on Sunday night, the issue is sent to the printers, who churn out a few thousand copies and deliver them to us by Monday morning. Our distribution manager puts the papers on stands around campus and drives a few bundles to St. George for students to pick up as they start another hectic week. Meanwhile, the online editor and the webmaster are formatting the issue for the website and uploading it all. Throughout the week, we draw attention to the results of all the hard work via social media managing. Students read and comment on the articles, and… the whole process begins again, at least 20 times a year!