The Badger has been the lifeblood of my time at Sussex. Wednesday editing, Friday contributors’ meetings and editorial meetings, and all the meetings and intensely excited chats about content in between – these have been the constants punctuating my weeks since I arrived at Sussex.
I will always be grateful to the editorial team who welcomed me when I sought them out in the first week of my first year, wide-eyed and eager to get on The Badger’s News team. I will be grateful especially to the then-editor who took a gamble on me (people couldn’t apply to join the team before starting university) and gave me the chance to become part of something which has always been so wonderful.
The Badger has introduced me to so many admirable people and given me a particular insight into campus life. Early on I realised this was the place for me, I am very grateful for having been given the honour of guiding the paper this year.
To uphold the legacies of all the wonderful editors, writers, thinkers and planners who made this paper so strong before my time, and to bring the paper into something which builds on that tradition was an exciting yet terrifying challenge. There is no way that anything achieved this year could have been done without the commitment and sheer enthusiasm of the entire team. This year we have welcomed so many brilliant people into The Badger team – they have put in late, late nights; written and edited every week; designed beautiful spreads; gone to countless events and each has come up with a staggering number of clever and original pitches!
Every single person brings something special and important to the team, and I have relished getting to know these people as they came into their own, took pride in their work and made the paper better every week for a staggering 20 editions. The people who have made up the brilliant 2016-17 full-time team are pictured above. To each and every one of them, and to our contributors: thank you.
I am deeply sad this year is ending, but I am delighted to have worked with them all – and I can only hope that they feel as at home in our little office as I have come to feel. It has been a wonderful year as The Badger‘s Editor: thank you all, for everything.
We shall still be publishing content online, so keep an eye on here for all online exclusive content over the end of the term and over the summer.
This week, as the final week for The Badger 2016-17, I’m delighted to present an editorial from my Deputy Editor, Glenn Houlihan – an amazingly dedicated person who has shown commitment and creativity week in, week out
It’s a wrap! And not one
of those damp overpriced ones from the Union Shop.
It’s the end of an adventure, of an era – The Badger 2016/17 is saying its goodbyes.
There have been highs, lows, peaks, troughs, and whole lot of editions; 20 to be exact. As always we’ve incurred the wrath of everyone from the Uni’s internal comms to the Union’s hapless (sorry, I mean elected) reps on what feels like a weekly basis.
As someone, who is probably rather lonely, once said: “If you’re not pissing someone off, you probably aren’t doing anything important”.
We’ve beaten nationals to stories (our report on Varsity’s mayhem was, to be generous, borrowed by The Telegraph) and exposed the Uni’s skulduggery – catch up on The Badger‘s excellent writing on TEF and fee rises if you haven’t already savoured it, investigative journalism at its finest conducted by Luke Richards, Tom Robinson and Freya Marshall Payne.
Graduating from the Sports page (in the extraordinarily capable hands of Dan and Aaron this year) and moving to the Deputy Editor was initially a tough task (what happened to all the press passes?) but it’s been hugely rewarding; seeing the smile on Will Singh’s face as I tickled him intensely enough for him to scream in terror during an editorial meeting is one of my fondest memories of leading the team. After all:
“A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.”
– John C. Maxwell
Something I will, alas, not miss is arranging distribution; turns out people don’t really want to carry stacks of papers around campus, especially if their set destination is Freeman. A few stolen perspex and one dispute with Southern Rail later, and our locations shrank to a selection of hotspots – hopefully that didn’t prevent anyone picking us up… (If you’re reading this I guess it isn’t so bad!)
A massive thanks to all the team (printing weekly takes its toll!) and to everyone who’s read, commented and shared in the last year. It has been a pleasure.
